WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

LIEUT.- GEN. THE RT. HON. J.C . SMUTS 




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WAR-TIME SPEECHES 



WAR-TIME 
SPEECHES 

A Compilation of 
Public Utterances in Great Britain 

BY 

Lieut.-Gen. the Rt* Hon. J.C. Smuts, 

P.C., K.C., MX.A. 

In connection with the session of the Imperial War Cabinet 
and Imperial War Conference, 1917 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS IN AMERICA FOR HODDER & STOUGHTON 
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COPYRIGHT, 1917, 
BT GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



SEP -I 191? 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



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FOREWOED 

I have been strongly urged to publish in pamphlet 
form some of the speeches which I have recently made 
in this country. To this I have finally agreed, in spite 
of their ephemeral character and their rough unpolished 
form. The fact is that these speeches were made from 
very brief notes and that for their reproduction I am 
now dependent on the actual form in which they were 
delivered as reported in the Press, often in a very con- 
densed form; indeed, some of my addresses were sum- 
marised to such an extent that their reconstruction from 
the reports has been found impossible. 

In spite of their form, however, a general unity of 
ideas runs through them all, which I hope has proved 
helpful and may in pamphlet form interest a wider 
circle. The speeches all deal either with our war aims 
or the British Empire or the future government of the 
world. These three subjects are, in my mind, closely 
related and rest on the same basis of ideas. Whatever 
the causes and origins of the war, the continuous in- 
creasing pressure of this vast calamity on the human 
spirit has pushed to the front the basic ideas on which 
our Western civilisation rests, and is silently bringing 
about a far-reaching change in our political and social 
outlook. 

The military aspects of the war so absorb our atten- 
tion that we are apt to forget the still more important 



vi FOREWORD 

moral aspects, -and to overlook the fact that the suffer- 
ing of such multitudes is slowly but surely working a 
great psychological change, which will lead to results 
far beyond any that were contemplated at the beginning 
of the war. However hard we are striving for victory 
— and victory to my mind is essential for a well-ordered, 
lasting peace — we should not aim merely at a military 
victory, but still more at such a moral victory as will 
become a steadfast basis for the new order of things. 
This could be done by making people realise the funda- 
mental ideals which underlie our essential war aims. If 
we are to achieve the permanent destruction of that 
military Imperialism which has drifted from the past 
like a monstrous iceberg into our modern life, we must 
create a new temperature, a new atmosphere for De- 
mocracy, and strengthen the forces of freedom and na- 
tional government and self-development at the same time 
that we work for the free co-operation of the nations in 
future, in pursuing the common ideals of a peaceful 
civilisation. Military * Imperialism, more briefly called 
Prussianism, was one method to counteract the anarchy 
of the individual sovereign States of modern Europe 
— a very disastrous method. For it will have to be sub- 
stituted a new method, based on a powerful and wide- 
spread public opinion, which will reconcile the individual 
freedom of States with co-operative machinery in the 
first instance for the preservation of peace, and later for 
securing other essential common aims of civilisation. 
The method of subjection by force will have to give 
way to the method of co-operation on the basis of free- 
dom. 

This ideal of an organised free co-operative basis for 
the future Society of Nations, which would have ap- 



FOREWORD vii 

peared chimerical before the war, is so no longer, though 
many generations will elapoe before it will be in full 
working order. The interesting point is that in the Brit- 
ish Empire, which I prefer to call (from its principal 
constituent state) the British Commonwealth of Na- 
tions, this transition from the old legalistic idea of po- 
litical sovereignty based on force, to the new social 
idea of constitutional freedom, based on consent, has 
been gradually evolving for more than a century. And 
the elements of the future world Government, which 
will no longer rest on the Imperial ideas adopted from 
the Roman law, are already in operation in our Com- 
monwealth of Nations and will rapidly develop in the 
near future. As the Roman ideas guided European 
civilisation for almost two thousand years, so the newer 
ideas embedded in the British constitutional and Co- 
lonial system may, when carried to their full develop- 
ment, guide the future civilisation for ages to come. 
But some development in the structure of our Common- 
wealth and the greater equalising of its constituent parts 
will be necessary before the British precedent could be 
fruitfully applied to the Society of Nations at large. 

That is roughly how the constitutional ideas under- 
lying our Commonwealth seem to me to connect, on the 
one hand with the ideals for which we are fighting 
in this war, and on the other with the larger world order 
which will in future replace the chaos of our present 
international system. 

In the following speeches rough popular expression 
is given to these ideas. My hope is that these ideas will 
more and more mark the goal at which we are con- 
sciously aiming through this tragedy of sorrow, and will 
give us that inner strength and resolution which will 



viii FOREWORD 

enable the Allied Democracies to hold on till victory is 
achieved. We shall then fight on, not in a dull, desperate 
spirit for low material ends, but in a conscious, joyous 
co-operation with the spiritual forces of progress to- 
wards a better future for man. 

J. C. Smuts. 

London, 
31^ May, 1917 



CONTENTS 



The War and Empire Problems 

The Future Constitutional Relations in the 
Empire . . 

The British Commonwealth of Nations 

The War and the Empire . 

Youth and Honour .... 

A League of Nations 

Freedom . . 

The Future of South and Central Africa 

Russia— The Need of Discipline and Organi 
sation "..-.. 

Democracy and the War . . 



PAGE 

I 



II 

21 

35 
43 
49 
63 
7i 

87 
99 



The Publishers acknowledge with thanks the kind- 
ness of the Proprietors of The Times, The Scotsman, 
and The Cambridge Daily News in giving permission to 
make use' of the reports of General Smuts' speeches 
which have appeared in their columns. 



THE WAR AND EMPIRE PROBLEMS 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Luncheon 
given by the Empire Parliamentary Association to the 
members of the Imperial War Cabinet, at the House of 
Commons, April 2nd, 1917. 

The Toast of cc The Oversea Ministers" was proposed 
by the Rt. Hon. Walter Long, M.P., Secretary of State 
for the Colonies, and was responded to by Sir Robert 
Borden and General Smuts. 



WAR-TIME SPEECHES 



THE WAR AND EMPIRE PROBLEMS 

I am extremely grateful to you for the reception you 
have given me. I feel very much embarrassed to-day 
in following two such speakers as Mr. Long and the 
Prime Minister of Canada. 

I feel on this occasion that South Africa is not put- 
ting her best foot forward. I could wish that General 
Botha was here to-day to be bracketed with Sir Robert 
Borden in reply to the toast of the Dominions, but un- 
fortunately he could not be here. He is bearing a 
burden in South Africa which no other man can bear, 
and it is a misfortune in a certain sense that I have 
to take the place of my right hon. friend. 

We feel profoundly grateful to you, Mr. Long, for 
the references you have made to the effort of the Do- 
minions in this war. No doubt, it is a great effort. But 
I must frankly confess that what has impressed me 
far more profoundly in this war is the effort and the 
spirit of the United Kingdom. 

When we consider that this nation was not organised 
on a military basis, that it was a nation built on peace 
institutions and founded on a commercial basis, and 
not intended for such a crisis as has overwhelmed the 
world now, I say that the effort that has been made 



2 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

by this nation is one to which it is almost impossible 
to do proper justice. That effort, and the spirit which 
is even greater than the effort, are the pledge of certain 
success in the future. I am as sure as I can be of any- 
thing that this spirit which the British nation has de- 
veloped is such that all will be well in the end, however 
hard it may be before the end comes. 

With regard to the Dominions, we have listened to 
the very eloquent and wise speech which Sir Robert Bor- 
den has made, and it is certainly a marvellous effort 
which has been made by the Dominions. Is it not a 
wonderful thing that the Dominion of Canada by her- 
self has made an effort almost equal, if not quite equal, 
to that made by Great Britain in the Boer War? Here 
you have an outlying nation of the Empire which has 
raised almost half a million men in the course of this 
war. I am credibly informed that, in proportion to her 
population, the effort of Australia has been almost more 
magnificent. As regards the Empire of India I cannot 
speak with authority, but I can say, as one who has 
commanded thousands of Indian troops in one of our 
campaigns, that I never wish to command more loyal, 
braver, and better troops. The Indian troops who are 
now breaking up the Turkish Empire in Mesopotamia 
are making a contribution to the war which should 
never be forgotten. New Zealand, the most British of 
all the Dominions, has made a magnificent effort ; with a 
small population of a little more than a million, she 
has raised approximately 100,000 men. This is an effort 
of which we might all well be proud. The same applies 
to Newfoundland. 

What can I modestly say about South Africa? We 
started this war with an internal convulsion in the 



THE WAR AND EMPIRE PROBLEMS 3 

country. Unlike any other parts of the Empire, we 
first had to set our own house in order. That was 
done. We secured peace and quiet in South Africa, 
and to-day the German flag, except in a small and fever- 
ridden district, is not flying south of the equator. You 
have to remember — I do not want to be parochial, but 
the case of South Africa is significant for our whole 
position in this war — you must remember that, unlike 
the other Dominions, this work was done by a Dominion 
the majority of whose white population is not British, 
but Dutch. You have to remember that only fifteen 
years ago a very large portion of this population was 
locked in deadly conflict with the British Empire. And 
when you bear in mind these facts and see what has been 
achieved, I think you will agree with me that South 
Africa has done her share, and more than her share. 

How was this done ? Here I come to the wider issue. 
It was done because the Boer War of 1899-1902 was 
supplemented, was complemented, or compensated by 
one of the wisest political settlements ever made in the 
history of this nation. I hope that when in future you 
draw up a calendar of Empire-builders you will not 
forget the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 
He was not either intellectually or politically a super- 
man, but he was a wise man with profound feeling and 
profound political instinct, and he achieved a work 
in South Africa by one wise act of statesmanship which 
has already borne, and will continue to bear, the most 
far-reaching results in the history of this Empire. 

This completed what was begun in the Boer War, 
and it switched South Africa again on to the right track 
and the British Empire again on to the right track, be- 
cause, after all, the British Empire is not founded on 



4 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

might or force, but on moral principles — on principles 
of freedom, equality, and equity. It is these principles 
which we stand for to-day as an Empire in this mighty 
struggle. Our opponent, the German Empire, has never 
learned that lesson yet in her short history. She still 
believes that might is right — that a military machine 
is sufficient to govern the world. She has not yet realised 
that ultimately all victories are moral and that even the 
political government of the world is a moral govern- 
ment. The fundamental issue in this struggle in which 
we are engaged to-day is that the government of the 
world is not military, and it cannot be brought about by 
a military machine, but by the principles of equity, jus- 
tice, fairness, and equality, such as have built up this 
Empire. 

You see the effects of this already. Germany started 
enormously strong and preponderant in military strength 
over the world. What have we seen? Simply because 
we have a just and good cause and simply because she 
has been trying to hack her way through in a military 
sense, one country after another has dropped away from 
her. Two of her own treaty nations have dropped away 
from her, and to-day, almost all over the world, you 
will find the nations coming together against her. Amer- 
ica has not yet declared war. Nobody knows what 
America may do, but I say that if America does not go 
into this war to-day, she will go in to-morrow because 
the German attitude will force her sooner or later into 
open conflict. That is what Germany has achieved 
by the principle for which she is fighting. I am sure, 
if we continue to found our issue on those high prin- 
ciples that have actuated us so far through our history, 
the end is certain and Germany is already defeated. 



THE WAR AND EMPIRE PROBLEMS 5 

Morally and politically she is already defeated, and all 
that remains now is the fin^l issue on the field of battle. 

I do not conceal from myself that the position is a 
grave one — that the Central Empires are an enormously 
strong military combination, and when I speak of ulti- 
mate victory I do not hide from myself that we have 
hard work in front of us and that there are difficult 
times ahead of us. There is no doubt, after the long 
time the war has lasted — almost three years- — and the 
exhaustion which is overtaking Central Europe, that 
they cannot continue much longer, and that by the au- 
tumn that is now before them they will probably make 
their maximum military effort. They are flouting the 
opinion of the world in a way they have never done 
before, and in a way which suggests that they must try 
hard at any cost to achieve some definite result this 
summer. 

As to the submarine campaign, I am fully convinced 
that that campaign is not going to settle this war. At 
the best it is, as it were, a raid on our wide Empire com- 
munications. The raids will be severe from time to 
time and will inconvenience us very seriously, but they 
will not lead to our defeat. No mere raid on lines of 
communications ever yet led to the defeat of any army 
in the world. This summer, I think, we shall probably 
see the submarine effort on which Germany is relying 
fail in its intention, and then, earlier than many of us 
think, we shall hear of peace again. As Sir Robert 
Borden has assured us, this nation is not inspired by 
any vengeful feeling, by a desire to destroy the German 
nation. We are actuated by higher motives. We are 
not going to decline to a lower level of mere vengefulness 
and hatred. I am sure the nation will at the end make a 



6 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

wise settlement not only in its own interests, but in the 
interests of the whole of Europe. 

As to the future constitution of the Empire, I do 
not wish to speak on that subject at any length. I do 
not think this is the time or that it is necessary to 
do so, but I think one word of caution should be ex- 
pressed. A great deal of political thinking on this 
difficult and most important of all subjects has already 
been done in the United Kingdom, and a great literature 
is growing up around it. Let me give you one word 
of warning. In thinking of this matter, do not try- 
to copy existing political institutions which have been 
evolved in the course of European development. The 
British Empire is a much larger and more diverse prob- 
lem than anything we have seen hitherto ; and the sort of 
Constitution we read about in books, the sort of political 
alphabet which has been elaborated in years gone by, 
does not apply and would not solve the problems of our 
future. We should not follow precedents, but make 
them. I feel sure that in the coming years, when this 
problem is in process of solution — because it will never 
be finally and perfectly solved — you will find our po- 
litical thought will be turned into quite new channels, 
and will not follow what has been done anywhere else 
either in the old world or the new, because, after all, we 
are built on freedom. 

We see growing up before us a great number of strong 
free nations all over the Empire. Nobody wants to 
limit their power of self-government. No single man 
outside a lunatic asylum wants to force these young na- 
tions into any particular mould. All that we want is 
the maximum of freedom and liberty, the maximum of 
self -development for the young nations of the Empire, 



THE WAR AND EMPIRE PROBLEMS 7 

and machinery that will keep all these nations together in 
the years which are before them. I am sure if we dis- 
abuse our minds of precedents and preconceived ideas 
we shall evolve, in the course of years, the institutions 
and machinery that will meet our difficulties. 

I am full of courage, and I am encouraged and in- 
spired by the spirit which I have seen in this island since 
I came here; and I think that that spirit, more than 
anything else, is a pledge of the victory which lies be- 
fore us. 



THE FUTURE CONSTITUTIONAL 
RELATIONS IN THE EMPIRE 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Session of 
the Imperial War Conference on April 16th, when speak- 
ing to the following resolution, moved by the Prime Min- 
ister of Canada. 

Resolution: — 

The Imperial War Conference are of opinion that 
the readjustment of the constitutional relations of k 
the component parts of the Empire is too important 
and intricate a subject to be dealt with during the 
War, and that it should form the subject of a special 
Imperial Conference to be summoned as soon as 
possible after the cessation of hostilities. 

They deem it their duty, however, to place on 
record their view that any such readjustment, while 
thoroughly preserving all existing powers of self- 
government and complete control of domestic af- 
fairs, should be based upon a full recognition of the 
Dominions as autonomous nations of an Imperial 
Commonwealth, and of India as an important por- 
tion of the same, should recognise the right of the 
Dominions and India to an adequate voice in foreign 
policy and in foreign relations, and should provide 
effective arrangements for continuous consultation 
in all important matters of common Imperial con- 
cern, and for such necessary concerted action, 
founded o\n consultation, as the several Govern^ 
ments may determine. 



THE FUTTJEE CONSTITUTIONAL EELATIONS IN 

THE EMPIEE 

I need hardly point out that this is far and away the 
most important point on the agenda of our Conference 
this time. The British Empire is the most important 
and fascinating problem in political and constitutional 
government which the world has ever seen. Whenever 
we come to this question of a proper Constitution for 
this Empire we touch on the very gravest and most im- 
portant issues. As a matter of fact we are the only 
group of nations that has ever successfully existed. 
People talk about a league of nations and international 
government, but the only successful experiment in in- 
ternational government that has ever been made is the 
British Empire, founded on principles which appeal to 
the highest political ideals of mankind. Founded on 
liberal principles, and principles of freedom and equal- 
ity, it has continued to exist for a good time now, and 
our hope is that the basis may be so laid for the future 
that it may become an instrument for good, not only in 
the Empire but in the whole world. 

The subject-matter of this resolution, as Sir Robert 
Borden has stated, has been carefully considered, and 
although, quite properly, a definite decision on the main 
problem is to be postponed for future action by a more 
important Conference than this, yet certain principles are 
affirmed here in this resolution which are very important 

ii 



12 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

and far-reaching. The resolution refers, in the first 
place, to the question of the status of the self-governing 
Dominions. That matter has already been referred to 
both by Sir Robert Borden and by Mr. Massey, and I 
wish to say a few words in reference to the point. The 
resolution says that any future settlement that is come 
to must "be based upon a full recognition of the Do- 
minions as autonomous nations of an Imperial Com- 
monwealth." The whole question of the future status of 
the Dominions is therefore raised in this resolution. Sa 
far the British Empire has developed along natural lines. 
The Dominions started as Colonies and as settlements 
of the Mother Country and of the British Isles. They 
started as Crown Colonies ; they developed into self-gov- 
erning Colonies, and now they have become the present 
Dominions. Other parts of the world have been added 
to the Empire, until to-day we have really a congeries 
of nations. These old Colonies and the present Domin- 
ions have in course of time increased in importance, in- 
creased in population and in economic influence, and are 
to-day already playing a part in the world which seems 
to my mind to make it very necessary that their status 
should be very seriously considered, and should be im- 
proved. Too much, if I may say so, of the old ideas still 
cling to the new organism which is growing. I think 
that although in practice there is great freedom, yet 
in theory the status of the Dominions is of a subject 
character. Whatever we may say, and whatever we 
may think, we are subject provinces of Great 
Britain. That is the legal theory of the Constitution, 
and in many ways which I need not specify to-day that 
theory still permeates practice. I think that is one of 
the most important questions that will have to be dealt 



CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS 13 

with when this question of our future constitutional re- 
lations on a better and mor^ permanent basis comes to 
be considered. The status of the Dominions as equal 
nations of the Empire will have to be recognised to a 
very large extent. The Governments of the Dominions 
as equal Governments of the King in the British Com- 
monwealth will have to be recognised far more fully 
than that is done to-day, at any rate in the theory of 
the Constitution if not in practice. That is the most 
important principle laid down in the second part of this 
resolution, that there should be "a full recognition of the 
Dominions as autonomous nations." And to strengthen 
the point the resolution goes on to affirm that the exist- 
ing powers of self-government should not be interfered 
with. Of course, there is a good deal of feeling of 
natural and justifiable jealousy in the Dominions as to 
the rights which they have acquired and which they do 
not like to be tampered with, and I think it is very 
wise to add this to the resolution, that their existing 
powers of self-government should not be tampered with. 
If that is so it follows that one theory, one proposed 
solution of our future constitutional relations, is nega- 
tived by this resolution. If this resolution is passed, 
then one possible solution is negatived, and that is the 
Federal solution. The idea of a future Imperial Par- 
liament and a future Imperial Executive is negatived 
by implication by the terms of this resolution. The idea 
on which this resolution is based is rather that the Em- 
pire would develop on the lines upon which it has 
developed hitherto; that there would be more freedom 
and more equality in all its constituent parts ; that they 
will continue to legislate for themselves and continue to 
govern themselves ; that whatever executive action has to 



14 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

be taken, even in common concerns, would have to be 
determined, as the last paragraph says, by "the several 
Governments" of the Empire, and the idea of a Federal 
solution is therefore negatived, and, I think, very wisely, 
because it seems to me that the circumstances of the Em- 
pire entirely preclude the Federal solution. Here we 
are, as I say, a group of nations spread over the whole 
world, speaking different languages, belonging to differ- 
ent races, with entirely different economic circumstances, 
and to attempt to run even the common concerns of that 
group of nations by means of a Central Parliament and 
a Central Executive is, to my mind, absolutely to court 
disaster. The experiment has been tried in the United 
States and, it is said, with great success. Well, the ex- 
periment in the United States has not lasted very long, 
and we must see whether it will continue successfully 
under the stress of the great experience into which Amer- 
ica is now entering. But I am informed by those who are 
very close observers of American government and 
American institutions that they are certain that the ex- 
periment has reached its utmost limits. In that case 
you have a compact country, a compact half continent, 
where people live together, where they all go through the 
same mould, and where they are all formed more 
or less on the same lines; whereas in this Empire you 
have an entirely different state of affairs. The young 
nations are developing on their own lines; the young 
nations are growing into Great Powers, and it will be 
impossible to attempt to govern them in future by one 
common Legislature and one common Executive. 

Then if we are to continue as nations and to grow 
as nations and govern ourselves as nations the great 
question arises. How are we to keep this Empire to- 



CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS 15 

gether? That is the other important point, I take it, 
in this resolution — the point which recognises that there 
should be effective arrangements for continuous con- 
sultation in all common concerns, especially in concerns 
which are mentioned there specifically, that is foreign 
policy ; that in all common concerns there should be ef- 
fective arrangements for continuous consultation. Set- 
ting aside the Federal solution as not applicable to 
this Empire, which is not merely a State but a system 
of States — setting aside that solution, the question arises 
how you are to keep the different parts together, and 
it can only be done on the basis of freedom and equality 
which has existed hitherto, only the machinery would 
have to be arranged on which that system could be 
worked. I think it will not pass the wit of man to devise 
ways of continuous consultation — not intermittent, not 
every four years as we have had hitherto, but continuous 
consultation. Sir Robert Borden has pointed out in 
that great speech of his at the Parliamentary dinner — 
one of the wisest speeches I have ever listened to — that 
the practice which has now arisen spontaneously of a 
double Cabinet may in the future provide the germs 
of a solution. I express no opinion upon that, because 
very intricate constitutional questions are bound up with 
that, and it is quite possible to arrange this system of 
continuous consultation and conferences even on a dif- 
ferent basis and yet make it perfectly workable and 
feasible as a means of keeping the different parts of 
the Empire together. It seems to me that some such 
machinery will have to be devised, and that it will not 
be difficult to devise it once we come to sit round the 
table and discuss the matter carefully. In that way it 
will be possible, while leaving full executive action to the 



16 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

various more or less equal Governments of the Empire, 
while leaving full executive responsibility to them, to 
see that in all important concerns there is consultation 
and continuous consultation; that there is an exchange 
of ideas, and that the system, whilst preserving freedom 
and equality in its parts, will work with a strong sense 
of unity at the centre. 

I think, if this resolution is passed, we shall have 
taken an immense step forward in the history of the 
Empire. If we pass no other resolution at this Con- 
ference than this one, I am sure that we shall have done 
a good day's work for this Empire. We are emerging 
out of one era and we are entering upon another where 
much greater problems will confront us than ever be- 
fore. So far it has been possible for us each to go his 
own way, meeting once in so many years. In future 
it will be necessary for us to keep much more closely 
in touch with each other. 

These are the principles which are affirmed in this 
resolution, leaving the actual solution of our constitu- 
tional problem to be dealt with hereafter. These are 
the principles which are affirmed here, and I heartily 
endorse them and give my adhesion to this resolution. 



THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 
OF NATIONS 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Banquet 
given in his honour by members of both Houses of Par- 
liament on May 15th, 1917, in the Royal Gallery at the 
House of Lords. 

Field-Marshal Viscount French, in proposing the health 
of the guest, said: 

It is true that the eminent General whom we are en- 
tertaining at this moment justly shines amongst us as a 
highly successful commander in the Held, and it is in the 
light of his great military talents that the whole British 
Empire to-day regards him. If this were all, it might 
be right that his health should be proposed by a comrade 
in arms, but it is not necessary for me to reiterate the 
well-known fact that he is also a great lawyer and 
a great statesman. Although I feel myself unfitted to 
speak on such a subject in the presence of so distinguished 
a gathering and on so historic an occasion, I am yet glad 
of the opportunity in order to recall a period of time six- 
teen years ago, a time to which the General himself has 
more than once eloquently referred since he has been in 
this country, when I had the honour {and I feel it to have 
been a great honour) of opposing him in the Held. 

With consummate bravery and ability he commanded 
the Boer forces in Cape Colony throughout the last year 
of the South African War. General Smuts took, as we 
know, a large and important part in the conduct of the 
first two years of the war } but I prefer to choose, as an 
illustration of his military genius, that part of the cam- 



COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 19 

paign for which he had the sole responsibility, and in 
which I had the best reason to feel and appreciate his 
power and ability as an opponent. "If you be a great 
general," said Sulla to Marius, "come and fight me." "If 
you be a great general" replied Marius to Sulla, "compel 
me to fight you." I say, without hesitation, that day after 
day, week after week, month after month, our distin- 
guished guest, with every disadvantage in the way of 
numbers, arms, transport, equipment, and supply, eluded 
all my attempts to bring him to decisive action, and im- 
pressed me far more than any opponent I have ever met 
with his power as a great commander and leader of men. 
The British Army has, as I hope and believe, fairly 
earned a reputation for conducting war with that gen- 
erous chivalry which can alone justify it in the eyes of 
civilisation, and I rejoice to look back into the past, and 
to realise how our enemy of that time, commanded by 
such men as Botha and Smuts, continually vied with us 
in the constant maintenance of those finer sentiments 
which brave enemies should ever cultivate. 

I have always held the opinion that any kind of public 
comment, critical or otherwise, upon military operations 
is not only useless and foolish, but absolutely unjust 
until the full facts of such operations, or set of opera- 
tions, are fully known and understood, when all the cards 
on both sides are laid upon the table. The results of the 
campaign in East Africa up to date are so apparent and 
decisive that I do not think I can be accused of not 
observing this principle when I describe those operations 
as in the highest degree successful, and as another evi- 
dence of General Smuts's great military powers. I had a 
most interesting conversation with him the other day, in 
which he graphically described to me his plan of cam- 



20 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

paign, and his story, though told in the simplest and 
plainest of language, revealed to me unmistakably the 
workings of the mind of a great strategist and tactician. 
I have referred to General Smuts as a great leader and 
a great statesman. It is to my mind an extraordinary 
fact that some of the greatest soldiers in the world's his- 
tory have not made the profession of arms the chief 
study of their lives. We know that Cromwell, Lee, Grant, 
and other famous soldiers were not brought up to lead 
men in the Held, and it may hardly be said even in the case 
of the great Napoleon himself that the military art alone 
engaged his constant thought. Our guest of to-night 
will go down to history with these other great names as 
living illustrations of what we mean when we talk of bom 
leaders of men. Personally, I do not know which I am 
proudest of — of having crossed swords with him, or 
fought by his side. Both as an opponent and as a friend 
he has taught us all great lessons. 



THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 

I cannot express to you how deeply I appreciate the 
honour which you have done me. Ever since I came, 
two months ago, to this country, I have received noth- 
ing but the most perfect and charming kindness and 
hospitality everywhere, and this hospitality has culmi- 
nated in the unique banquet at which we are present to- 
night. I appreciate it all the more because I know it is 
given at a time when the greatest struggle in the world's 
history is being decided, and when nobody feels inclined 
to indulge in festivities. From the Government of the 
country I have received many marks of confidence, which 
I have endeavoured to requite in the only way possible 
to me, by giving them my frank and honest views on 
every question. When I return home, as I hope shortly 
to do, I shall be able to tell the people of South Africa 
that I have been received here by you, not as a guest or 
as a welcome stranger, but simply as one of yourselves, 
though speaking with a different accent and laying a dif- 
ferent emphasis on many things, as no doubt becomes 
a barbarian from the outer marches of the Empire. 

I am profoundly thankful to you, Lord French, for 
the words which have fallen from you. The words of 
eulogy you have expressed in regard to myself are 
largely, I think, undeserved ; but, at any rate, I accept 
them as coming from an old opponent and comrade in 
arms. I know they are meant in the best spirit, and I 

21 



22 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

accept them in that spirit even where I feel I do not 
deserve them. Your words to-night and the great com- 
pliment you have paid me by presiding at this gathering 
recall to my mind many an incident of the stirring times 
to which you have referred when we were opposing com- 
manders in the last year of the Boer War. 

On one occasion, I remember, I was surrounded in a 
very nasty block of mountains by Lord French. I was 
face to face practically with disaster. Nothing was left 
me but the most diligent scouting to find a way out. I 
did some of the scouting myself, with a small party. I 
ventured into a place which looked promising, and which 
bore the appropriate name of "Murderer's Gap." I 
am sorry to say I was the only man who came out alive 
from that gap. In an account which I saw subsequently 
of this incident I saw the remark made that "one Boer 
escaped, but he probably had so many bullets in him 
that he would be no further danger." 

Well, Lord French, I have survived to be your guest 
this evening. I was in a very tight corner there. I did 
get out, and two days afterwards I did break through 
- — blessed word in these times. At night I came out of 
those mountains to the railway. It was a very dark night, 
and my small force was just on the point of crossing 
the railway when we heard that a train was coming. I 
allowed the train to pass, and we stood alongside and 
looked on. You can imagine what my feelings were 
when I heard some time afterwards that the only freight 
on that train was Lord French, who was moving from 
one part of his front to the other to find out how I had 
broken through. If I had not missed that chance Lord 
French would have been on that occasion my guest. No 
doubt a very welcome, though a somewhat embarrassing 



COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 23 

guest! Now to-night I am his guest, I hope not em- 
barrassing, though very much embarrassed. 

Those were very difficult and strenuous days — days 
in which one learnt many valuable lessons, good for all 
one's life. One of the lessons I learned was that, under 
the stress of great difficulties such as we were then pass- 
ing through, the only things which survived were the 
simple human feelings, feelings of loyalty to your fellows 
and feelings of comradeship and patriotism which carried 
you through danger and privation. We soldiers know 
the extreme value of these simple feelings. We know 
how far they can go, and that in the end they can bear 
the whole weight of civilisation. When you think that, in 
addition to this, you have the circumstance which you 
have referred to, then you can see how out of that calam- 
ity has been produced the state of affairs in South Africa 
to-day. You can see how these simple human feelings of 
loyalty to your comrades and respect for your opponents 
on both sides have led to a new basis on which to build 
the larger South Africa we have to-day. 

I am sure that in the present great struggle which is 
being waged in the world you will see the same causes 
leading to a like result. Here you have from all parts 
of the British Empire young men gathered together on 
the battlefields of Europe and the other fields of war. 
While your statesmen may be planning great schemes 
of union for the future of the Empire, my feeling is that 
the work is already largely done. The spirit of comrade- 
ship which has been born in this war and on the battle- 
fields of Europe among men from all parts of the Em- 
pire will be far more powerful than any instrument 
of government we can erect in the future. I feel sure 
that in after years, when we or our successors come to 



24 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

sum up what has happened, there will be a good credit 
balance due to this feeling which has been built up and 
which will be the best support for the Empire in the 
future. 

Once more, as many ages ago it happened under the 
Roman Emperors, the German volcano is in eruption 
and the whole world is shaken. No doubt in this great 
convulsion you are faced in this country with the most 
enormous problems which any Government or people 
has ever been called upon to solve, problems of world- 
wide strategy, of man-power, of communications, of food 
supply, problems of every imaginable kind and of such 
magnitude that it is almost beyond the wit of man to deal 
with them. It is inevitable where you have so many 
difficulties to face that one should forget to keep before 
oneself the' situation as a whole ; and yet this is very 
necessary. It is most essential that even in this struggle, 
even when Europe is looming so much before our eyes, we 
should keep before us and see steadily the problem of 
the whole situation. I would ask you not to forget in 
these times the British Commonwealth of nations. Eu- 
rope will not continue to loom so much in view as it 
does at present. 

I want to say a few words to-night on this subject, 
because I think there is a tendency to forget some of the 
aspects of the question with which we are now con- 
fronted. This is one of the reasons why I am glad that 
an Imperial Conference has been called at this time. 
It is apparently a very inopportune moment, but the 
calling together of the Conference has helped to turn 
attention once more to that aspect of the whole situation 
which is so important to us. It is not only Europe we 
have to consider, but the future of the great Common- 



COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 25 

wealth to which we all belong. This Commonwealth 
is peculiarly constituted. It is scattered over the whole 
world. It is not a compact territory, and it is dependent 
for its very existence on world-wide communications — - 
communications which must be maintained or this Em- 
pire goes to pieces. 

In the years of peace behind us we see what has hap- 
pened. Everywhere on your communications Germany 
has settled down; everywhere on your communications 
you will find a German colony or a German settlement, 
small or large ; and the day might come when you would 
be in jeopardy through your lines of communication be- 
ing cut. One of the by-products of the war has been 
that the whole world outside of Europe has been cleared 
of the enemy. Germany has been swept from all the seas 
and all the continents except Central Europe. While 
Germany has been gaining ground in Central Europe, 
from all the rest of the world she has been swept clear. 
You are now in this position : that once more you can 
consider the problem of your future as a whole. When 
peace comes to be made you have all these cards in your 
hand, and you can go carefully into the question of 
what is necessary for your future security and the fu- 
ture safety of the Empire, and can say what you are 
going to keep and what you are going to give away. I 
hope that when the time comes — I am speaking for my- 
self and expressing nobody's opinion but my own — 
when the time comes for peace to be made we shall 
bear in mind not only Central Europe, but the whole 
British Empire. As far as we are concerned, we do 
not wish this war to have been fought in vain. We have 
not fought for material gain or for territory, but we 
have fought for security in the future. If we attach 



26 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

any value to this group of nations which composes the 
British Empire, then in settling the terms of peace we 
shall have to look to its future security and safety. I 
hope that no arrangement will be made which will 
jeopardise the valuable results which have been attained. 
That is the geographical situation. 

There remains the difficult question of the constitu- 
tional adjustment and relations of the British Empire. 
At a luncheon which was given some time back by the 
Empire Parliamentary Association to the delegates to 
the Imperial Conference, I said rather cryptically that I 
did not think this was a matter in which we could fol- 
low precedent, and I hope you will bear with me to-night 
if I say a few words on that theme. I think that we are 
inclined to make mistakes in thinking about this group of 
nations to which we belong, because too often we think 
about it as one State. We are not a State. The Brit- 
ish Empire is much more than a State. I think the very 
expression "Empire" is misleading, because it makes 
people think that we are one community, to which the 
word "Empire" can appropriately be applied. Germany 
is an Empire. Rome was an Empire. India is an Em- 
pire. But we are a system of nations. We are not a 
State, but a community of States and nations. We are 
far greater than any Empire which has ever existed, and 
by using this ancient expression we really disguise the 
main fact that our whole position is different, and that 
we are not one State or nation or empire, but a whole 
world by ourselves, consisting of many nations, of many 
States, and all sorts of communities, under one flag. 

We are a system of States, and not a stationary sys- 
tem, but a dynamic evolving system, always going for- 
ward to new destinies. Take the position of that system 



COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 27 

to-day. Here you have the United Kingdom with a 
number of Crown Colonies. Besides that you have a 
large Protectorate like Egypt, an Empire by itself. Then 
you have a great Dependency like India, also an Empire 
by itself, where civilisation has existed from time im- 
memorial, where we are trying to see how East and West 
can work together. These are enormous problems; but 
beyond them we come to the so-called Dominions, inde- 
pendent in their government, which have been evolved 
on the principles of your free constitutional system into 
almost independent States, which all belong to this 
community of nations, and which I prefer to call "the 
British Commonwealth of Nations." 

You can see that no political ideas which have been 
evolved in the past will apply to this world which is 
comprised in the British Empire; and any name we 
have yet found for this group is insufficient. The man 
who will find a proper name for this system will, I think, 
do real service to the Empire. 

The question is : How are you going to provide for 
the future government of this Commonwealth? An 
entirely new problem is presented. If you want to see 
how great it is, you must indulge in comparison. Look 
at the United States. There you find what is essentially 
one nation, not perhaps in the fullest sense, but what is 
more and more growing into one nation; one big State 
consisting, no doubt, of separate parts, but all linked up 
into one big continuous area. The United States had 
to solve the problem which this presented, and they dis- 
covered the federal solution — a solution which provides 
subordinate treatment for the subordinate parts, but one 
national Federal Government and Parliament for the 
whole. Compare with that state the enormous system 



28 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

which is comprised in the British Empire. You can see 
at once that a solution which has been found practicable 
in the case of the United States will never work in the 
case of a system such as we are comprising a world 
by itself. 

What I feel in regard to all the empires of the past, 
and even in regard to the United States, is that the 
effort has always been towards forming one nation. 
All the empires we have known in the past and that 
exist to-day are founded on the idea of assimilation, 
of trying to force human material into one mould. Your 
whole idea and basis is entirely different. You do not 
want to standardise the nations of the British Empire; 
you want to develop them towards greater, fuller na- 
tionality. These communities, the offspring of the 
Mother Country, or territories like my own, which have 
been annexed after the vicissitudes of war, must not 
be moulded on any one pattern. You want them to de- 
velop freely on the principles of self-government, and 
therefore your whole idea is different from anything 
that has ever existed before. That is the fundamental 
fact we have to bear in mind — that this British Com- 
monwealth of nations does not stand for standardisation 
or denationalisation, but for the fuller, richer, and more 
various life of all the nations comprised in it. 

Even the nations which have fought against it, like my 
own, must feel that their cultural interests, their lan- 
guage, their religion, are as safe and as secure under the 
British flag as those of the children of your own house- 
hold and your own blood. It is only in proportion as this 
is realised that you will fulfil the true mission which is 
yours. Therefore it seems to me that there is only one 
solution, and that is a solution supplied by our past tra- 



COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 29 

ditions — the traditions of freedom, self-government, and 
of the fullest development for all constituent parts of 
the Empire. 

The question arises : How are you going to keep this 
Commonwealth of nations together? If there is to be 
this full development towards a more varied and richer 
life among our nations, how are you going to keep them 
together? It seems to me that there are two potent fac- 
tors that you must rely upon for the future. The first 
is your hereditary kingship, the other is our Conference 
system. I have seen some speculations recently in the 
newspapers about the position of the kingship in this 
country — speculations by people who, I am sure, have 
not thought of the wider issues that are at stake. You 
cannot make a republic of the British Commonwealth of 
nations. 

If you had to elect a President, he would have to be a 
President not only here in these islands, but all over the 
British Empire — in India and in the Dominions — the 
President who would be really representative of all these 
peoples; and here you would be facing an absolutely 
insoluble problem. The theory of the Constitution is that 
the King is not your King, but the King of all of us, rul- 
ing over every part of the whole Commonwealth of na- 
tions ; and if his place should be taken by anybody else, 
that somebody will have to be elected under a process 
which it will pass the wit of man to devise. Let us be 
thankful for mercies. We have a kingship here which 
is really not very different from a hereditary republic. 
I am sure that more and more in the future the trend 
will be in the direction of a more democratic kingship, 
and I shall not be surprised to see the time come when 
our Royal princes, instead of getting their consorts from 



30 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

among the princelings of Central Europe, will go for 
them to the Dominions and other portions of the British 
Empire. 

In regard to the present system of Imperial Confer- 
ences, it will be necessary to devise better machinery 
for common consultation than we have at present. So 
far, we have relied on Imperial Conferences which meet 
once in every four years or thereabouts. However use- 
ful has been the work done at these Conferences, they 
have not, in my opinion, been a complete success. It will 
be necessary to devise better means of achieving our 
ends. A precedent has now been laid down of calling 
together the Dominion Prime Ministers and representa- 
tives from the Empire of India to the Imperial Cabinet. 
You have seen a statement made by Lord Curzon that 
it is the intention of the Government to perpetuate this 
system in the future. Although we shall have to wait 
for a complete explanation of the scheme from the 
Government, yet it is clear that in an institution like 
that we have a better instrument of common consultation 
than we have in the old Imperial Conference which meets 
only every four years and which discusses a number of 
subjects not really of first-rate importance. 

What is necessary is that there shall be called together 
the most important rulers of the Empire, say once a 
year, to discuss matters which concern all parts of the 
Empire in common, in order that causes of friction and 
misunderstanding may be prevented or removed. We 
also need a meeting like that in order to lay down a 
common policy in common matters concerning the Em- 
pire as a whole, and to determine the true orientation of 
our common Imperial policy. There is, for instance, 
foreign policy on which the fate of the Empire might 



COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 31 

from time to time depend. Some such method of pro- 
cedure must lead to very important results and very 
great changes. You cannot settle a common foreign 
policy for the whole of the British Empire without 
changing that policy very much from what it has been 
in the past, because the policy will have to be, for one 
thing, far simpler. In the other parts of the Empire we 
do not understand diplomatic finesse. If our foreign 
policy is going to rest not only on the basis of our Cabi- 
net here, but, finally, on the whole of the British Em- 
pire, it will have to be a simpler policy, a far more in- 
telligible policy, and a policy which will in the end lead 
to less friction and greater safety. No one will dispute 
the primacy of the Imperial Government in this respect. 
We shall always look upon the British Government as 
the senior partner in the concern, as the managing di- 
rector responsible for our foreign affairs and responsible 
for carrying on those affairs in the intervals between the 
meetings of the Imperial Cabinet. But the Imperial 
foreign policy must always be subject to the principles 
laid down from time to time at the meetings of the Im- 
perial Cabinet. Such a policy will in the long run 
be saner and safer for the Empire as a whole. I also 
think it will lead to greater publicity. 

After the great catastrophe which has overtaken Eu- 
rope, nations in future will want to know more about 
their foreign policy. I am sure that the after effects 
of a change like this, although it looks a simple one, are 
going to be very important and far-reaching not only for 
our Commonwealth of nations but for the whole world. 

Far too much stress has been laid in the past on in- 
struments of government. People are inclined to forget 
that the world is growing more democratic, and that 



32 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

public opinion and the forces finding expression in public 
opinion are going to be far more powerful than they 
have been in the past. Where you build up a common 
patriotism and a common ideal, the instrument of gov- 
ernment will not be a thing that matters so much as 
the spirit which actuates the whole. 

When I look round this room to-night and see all 
who are present, I am filled with gratitude to you who 
have assembled to do me honour; to time, the great 
judge, the merciful judge, the healer of wounds ; and to 
that "Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how 
we will." And then I think of the difficulties that still lie 
ahead of us, and that are going to test all the nations 
fighting for liberty far more than they have ever been 
tested before. And I hope and pray that they all may 
have clearness of vision and purpose, and especially that 
strength of soul in the coming days which will be even 
more necessary than strength of arm. I believe, I 
verily believe, that we are within reach of priceless and 
immeasurable good, not only for this United Kingdom 
and group of nations to which we belong, but also for 
the whole world. It will depend largely on us whether 
the great prize is won in this war, or whether the world 
will once more be plunged into disaster and long years 
of weary waiting for the dawn. The prize is within 
our grasp if we have the strength of soul to see the 
thing through until victory crowns the efforts of our 
brave men in the field. 



THE WAR AND THE EMPIRE 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts in reply to the 
address by the Lord Provost on the occasion of the pres- 
entation of the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh on 
April nth, igiy. 



THE WAR AND THE EMPIRE 

General Smuts said the Lord Provost was right in 
saying that he had constantly all through the years be- 
hind them in South Africa striven for a spirit of co- 
operation, of sympathy, and of union between all races 
in that country to which he had the honour to belong. 
Union was inevitable in South Africa, but it had been 
his desire and his striving for many years that it should 
be such a union as that between England and Scotland, 
and not the sort of union they had had between England 
and Ireland. They had had in South Africa all the 
makings of an insoluble political problem; but by God's 
providence, and by the forbearance of both races, and 
their wisdom, they had in the end achieved a union 
which was like that between England and Scotland. 
Sir Robert Borden had reminded them that fifteen years 
ago he was fighting against the British Empire. There 
had been no change in him. The cause he fought for 
fifteen years ago was the cause for which he was fighting 
to-day. They in this country were a large-hearted 
people; and he was sure they would forgive him if he 
expressed his view that fifteen years ago, eighteen years 
ago, they were wrong. For a brief moment in their 
long national history they went off the track, and they 
came to grips with a very small people ; and in that strug- 
gle he did his best in order to conserve the self-existence 
and the liberty of his people. He was sometimes proud 

35 



36 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

to think that, according to the old Apostolic injunction, 
the Boers had heaped coals of fire upon their heads, 
and had been the instrument of bringing them back 
to the right track, to their old traditions of liberty, to 
the old ideal of standing by small peoples, and to that 
consciousness of right which had guided them in the past 
and would guide them in the future. As soon as the 
British Government came to wiser counsels, they handed 
back to South Africa, so far as it was possible, the lib- 
erty which they in South Africa thought would be jeopar- 
dised ; they made them a free country ; and in that way 
they laid the foundation of a large and great State in 
South Africa. As the result of that policy adopted after 
the Boer War, they saw to-day a nation that fought 
against the British Empire with a vigour and a persist- 
ence seldom seen in the history of the world, had been 
and still was fighting with all its strength for the com- 
mon cause. That had been brought about, and could 
only have been brought about, by the spirit of liberty, 
which had been the guilding principle of British history. 
Sir Robert Borden had told them that in the discussions 
they had had among themselves privately about the fu- 
ture of the British Empire there was no great difference 
of opinion between them, and the reason was simple. 
They saw clearly that it was only on a basis of freedom 
and the completest autonomy that the British Empire 
would continue to exist and would become stronger in 
the future. The British Empire was not a State ; it was 
half a world. It comprised old nations as well as young 
nations, and all the vast congeries of States could only 
be kept together in the future on the basis of liberty. 
He was sure that when the final settlement came to be 
made of the constitutional arrangements of the British 



THE WAR AND THE EMPIRE 37 

Empire that would be found to be the only solution. The 
spirit of comradeship, which was the .only basis of union, 
was there, and on that basis he was sure they would find 
the solution of our constitutional relations in the future, 
and not in mere rigid political machinery. 

In these times we were living under a great shadow. 
On the previous afternoon he was in France, where he 
had been visiting our front. He had looked at the Vimy 
Ridge, and he had seen the opening phases of what might 
become one of the great battles in history. He had seen 
what our men had to come through and what they had 
to suffer for the great cause we all had at heart. He 
wished they could see the front over which our men 
had been advancing in snow, sleet, and rain these last 
few days— one vast expanse of mud covered with shell 
pits so close together that only the lips of the craters 
were left. The pits were often so deep that if anybody 
fell into them he got drowned. That was the country 
in which hundreds of thousands of our brave comrades 
had been living for months, and over which they were 
advancing to victory to-day. He found them one and 
all, from the highest officer to the lowest private, im- 
bued with the same common spirit — no music-hall spirit, 
no spirit of bravado, but of determination to see the 
thing through. The organisation left nothing to be de- 
sired. German organisation had been overtaken. He 
listened to a bombardment of heavy guns which was prob- 
ably the greatest that had ever been heard in the history 
of the world. Tens of thousands of tons of projectiles 
were being hurled against the enemy, and in the evening 
when he came to look at the figures he found that, not- 
withstanding the bombardment, the amount of our shells 
at the front had actually increased that day. In other 



38 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

respects he was convinced that the machine worked 
smoothly and well, and that being so, combined with 
the spirit of the men, he thought they need not despair. 

Sir Robert Borden had referred to the criticism of 
the air service. Here was a fact that was to his mind 
absolutely convincing. During the days he was at the 
front he never saw an enemy machine. We were mak- 
ing preparations for a great advance ; we were accumu- 
lating men and material beyond description, and there 
was no enemy machine to see what we were doing. 
Why not? Because our airmen were fighting them ten, 
fifteen, and twenty miles behind their lines. No doubt 
our casualties had been great; but they did not mind 
casualties when they were making a great victorious 
offensive. We had completely established our mastery 
in the air. He was sorry when he saw sometimes carping 
criticism. No doubt in a democratic country, and 
with a free Press, they would have a great deal of public 
criticism; but in the present case it worked with some 
disadvantage. Our airmen were not big, strong fellows 
like himself ; they were schoolboys, youngsters who have 
been taken from their seats in school and put on our aero- 
planes. When these brave souls saw that their branch 
of the Service was the continual subject of attack, it 
took the heart out of them. If there was any part of our 
Service they could be proud of it was the part played 
by those youngsters who dominated the enemy in the 
air. 

This was not a war of armies, it was a war of na- 
tions, and the whole of this nation must be dominated by 
the same spirit as the Army. He wanted the spirit of 
the people in the British Empire to be worthy of the 
Army, and he was sure they could do far more as a 



THE WAR AND THE EMPIRE 39 

people than they had been doing hitherto. This was a 
struggle which went to the foundation of things, a 
struggle such as came to the world only once in a thou- 
sand years. Were they going to develop in future as 
free nations, working out their own destiny all over the 
world according to the light of their conscience and rea- 
son, or were they going to be tyrannised by militarism 
and all the evils that followed in the train of militarism? 
If Germany won, then she was justified, and her system 
was justified, and future civilisation would have to be 
on military and autocratic lines. Did they want that? 
They wanted freedom, and they wanted the spirit of 
Christian ethical civilisation to prevail. The words of 
President Wilson that "this world must be made safe for 
democracy" put the whole issue in a few words. The 
ruling classes in Germany must be broken before there 
could be peace and union in the world again. The only 
guarantee they could have for the future was victory 
now. 



YOUTH AND HONOUR 



Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Senate 
House on May 16th, 1917, on the occasion of the con- 
ferring of the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at 
the University of Cambridge. 

The Degree was also conferred on His Excellency Dr. 
Walter Hines Page, United States Ambassador to the 
Court of St. James 3 . 

[The visit of the United States Ambassador {Dr. Wal- 
ter Hines Page) and the South African Envoy to the 
Council of the Empire {Lieut. -General J. C. Smuts, K.C.) 
to Cambridge on Wednesday, to receive the honorary 
degrees conferred upon them by the University, was 
marked by an event believed to be without precedent. 
Both the recipients, after the degrees had been conferred 
upon them and the Congregation had been formally dis- 
solved, were accorded the privilege of making speeches 
to the crowded assembly. — Cambridge Daily News, May 
17th.] 



YOUTH AND HONOUE 

Lieut.-General Smuts, in replying to the address 
of the Public Orator, said that was one of the proudest 
days of his life. Many years ago, when he was an un- 
dergraduate of this University, he never dreamt that day 
would come when an honorary degree would be con- 
ferred upon him there. But he had seen so many won- 
derful things come to pass in his short lifetime that 
he was surprised at nothing any more. But he did 
appreciate that honour— more, perhaps, than any other 
honour that had come to him. The honour which was 
that day conferred upon him by his old Alma Mater 
reminded him of the happy years — some of the happiest 
years of his life — that he had spent here in this Uni- 
versity. In the intervening years they had drifted far 
apart. He had gone his ways, and they had not always 
been their ways. But in the course of time those diver- 
gent paths had met once more, and there he was, once 
more in the bosom of the old family, received not as a 
guest, but as one of themselves. He was especially 
proud to be there that day because of the very great 
change he saw had come over his old University. When 
he came on his present visit to England he saw Cambridge 
transformed. He saw nothing but uniforms here, and 
it was the most convincing proof possible that even this 
most conservative of places was moving with the times ; 
was not only moving with the times, but was setting 

43 



44 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

the rest of this United Kingdom one of the finest ex- 
amples possible. 

In his day, young men competed in the University 
for honours. That day he saw the young men of the 
University competing for a higher honour — a super- 
honour — an honour not only of achievement, but of sac- 
rifice. And in distant parts of the world, when he rode 
over large parts of Africa, he from time to time scanned 
the new honours lists of this University, and he had 
seen the very, very large numbers of young men who 
had given their lives, their health, their all, for the cause 
that was the highest and best of all. That made him 
prouder than he had ever been before of the University 
to which he belonged. 

He saw many of them there that day — many young 
offcers preparing and training for that great struggle, 
and he, as an old hand at that game, could only wish 
them sincerely the best of possible luck. He wanted 
them to bear in mind that to them was given a chance 
which seldom comes to human beings. To them had 
come the chance, as it had come to our generation, of 
fighting to the uttermost for the greatest of all human 
causes — the cause which, as the Public Orator had said 
in his speech, he (the speaker) had fought for constantly 
all his life — the cause of liberty. We would not see, 
so far as it lay in our power, liberty perish from the face 
of the earth. We would not see the human soul har- 
nessed to any war machine or any State machine, how- 
ever glorious or powerful it might be. It was for that 
reason that we had taken up arms — for that reason that 
the United States of America had forsaken their most 
sacred political tradition which they had followed now 
for more than one hundred years, and had come into the 



YOUTH AND HONOUR 45 

struggle, because they found that there was something 
greater and more valuable than tradition, that there was 
a cause which surpassed all tradition. They had joined 
in the struggle for human liberty. 

"It has come to you now, in your day," he continued, 
"as it had come to many of us in this generation, to 
lay our all upon this altar, and I hope that you may have 
luck — not only the luck of achievement, of doing your 
very best for the greatest of all causes, but that you 
may see victory crown your efforts, and that in the days 
to come we shall all rejoice, or those that come after 
us will rejoice, that we were not found wanting in 
the greatest of all tests and did not fail in the greatest 
examination of all history." It was very unusual, so 
far as his experience went, that any speech should be 
made in that sacred hall, and he apologised for having 
spoken so long. What he had said had been meant 
from the heart to those boys who were going to the 
front, and who were accompanied by our dearest and 
best wishes for their future welfare in the work in 
which they would be engaged. 



A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Central 
Hall, Westminster, at a meeting held under the auspices 
of the League of Nations Society on May 14th, 191 7. 

The meeting was presided over by Viscount Bryce, and 
the following Resolution was moved by General Smuts: — 

"That it is expedient in the interests of mankind 
that some machinery should be set up after the pres- 
ent war for the purpose of maintaining international 
rights and general peace, and this meeting welcomes 
the suggestions put forward for this purpose by the 
President of the United States and other influential 
statesmen in America and commends to the sympa- 
thetic consideration of the British peoples the idea 
of forming a union of free nations for the preserva- 
tion of permanent peace" 



A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

The Committee of this Society has done me the honour 
to ask me this afternoon to move the resolution. I do 
so with very great embarrassment, because I feel that the 
subject with which we are dealing this afternoon is 
probably the most important, but also the most difficult, 
that has ever arisen upon the horizon of human thought. 
I believe it is Cicero who said that the State was the 
divinest of institutions. If the State is a divine insti- 
tution, how much more divine is that institution which 
we are wishful to create, which will preserve peace, 
order, and good government not among the citizens of 
a State only, but among the nations of the world. But 
the subject is surrounded by the most perplexing diffi- 
culties, and certainly I this afternoon have nothing 
dogmatic to say. At the same time one feels that prog- 
ress has been made, and that the subject is no longer 
merely academic, no longer merely Utopian. If the war 
has done nothing more, it has at any rate done this — it 
has stamped into the hearts of millions of men and 
women an intense desire for a better order of things. 
And you see the result in a meeting like this this after- 
noon, where you have not only gathered the dreamers 
and the idealists, the visionaries, who are the salt of the 
earth, but also practical men, and even men of blood 
like myself. Well — it is high time that something were 
done. 

49 



50 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

The losses and sufferings of this war truly baffle de- 
scription ; one cannot contemplate without the prof ound- 
est emotion this horror that has come over Christendom, 
this spirit of self-destruction which has overtaken our 
so-called civilisation. After all the fair promises, all 
the fair hopes, all the fine enthusiasm of the nineteenth 
century, this is what we have come to. It is computed 
that nearly 8,000,000 people have already been killed 
in this war — not the old and decrepit, not the unfit, but 
the best — the very best, those who should have been the 
natural creators of the new world, they lie buried on 
the battlefields of civilisation, while larger numbers have 
been maimed and rendered unfit for the rest of their 
lives. It is probable that the number of killed and 
wounded in this war is not far short of that of the total 
white population of the British Empire. Is that not a 
matter to stir humanity to its depths? I think the time 
has come for very, very serious consideration of this 
matter. You see the most criminal disregard of all laws, 
human and divine. You see civilisation itself almost 
crumbling to pieces, and I am sure if some means were 
not provided by which such calamities could be prevented 
in future, and the repetition of wars like this was still 
possible in the future, then the whole fabric of our civili- 
sation will be in danger, people will become filled with 
a universal despair, and you will find the nations of 
the world saying, as the poet said in his despair, "From 
the world's bitter wind seek shelter in the shadow of the 
grave." For what would be the use of life, or what 
would be the use of civilisation, if those are the fruits 
of all our efforts and all our endeavours? 

The scale of the disaster is so vast that the whole mat- 
ter seems to be uncontrollable. Our nineteenth century 



A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 51 

science taught us how to mobilise the forces of nature, 
but it did not strengthen our social conscience corre- 
spondingly, and the result is that all these forces have 
been collected into some horrible engine of destruction 
which now moves like the cursed thing it is, like some 
blind destiny which is treading over our civilisation. If 
we had the moral ideas of the ancient Greeks we should 
believe this to be black destiny — some supernatural 
power which was driving mankind on to despair. But we 
know better. We know that this war is not the work 
of some superhuman agency; this war is man-made. It 
is human forces that lie at the basis of it, human intelli- 
gence, human stupidity, human greed and ambition ; they 
are all at the basis of this calamity that has overtaken 
us, and therefore this is no occasion for us to fold hands 
and to bow our heads before the storm. This is a time 
for action ; this tragedy that has come over us calls for ac- 
tion. What the human intelligence has done the human 
intelligence can undo again. And I feel sure that if one- 
hundredth part of the consideration and the thought that 
have been given to the war is given to schemes of peace, 
then you will never see any war again. 

But I agree with Lord Bryce, you must begin with 
the hearts of men, and I am not sure that this war has 
not brought this matter to that level — to the hearts of 
men and women — I am not sure that a passion has not 
been born for peace after this war which in the end 
will prove stronger than all the passion for war which 
has so far overwhelmed us, and that is the only thing 
that can save us in the long run. That is what I am 
looking forward to, that this war has not been a merely 
destructive agency, but that it will prove a creative 
power — that it will call forth in the human heart those 



52 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

feelings which will counterbalance the fierce passions 
which have in the past driven us on this evil road. 

Now at first blush it does seem as if the end of this 
war would be about the most hopeless time imaginable to 
talk of schemes of lasting peace. For at the end of this 
war you will find the world divided into two hostile 
camps, with a chasm of hatred between them such as 
probably has never been seen in the world before. You 
will find an atmosphere of hatred and ill-will and of 
international estrangement such as has never been seen 
before in the history of the world, And when you come 
to think of creating machinery for lasting peace you will 
have to bear in mind that the time, in a certain sense, 
will be the most unpropitious possible for the effort you 
are trying to make. 

On the other hand, I have also this feeling, and I am 
sure it is the right feeling, that deeper than that has 
been the good work that the war has done — the creation 
of a better feeling in the hearts of men — the passion 
which has been burnt into millions of minds and hearts 
that this state of affairs should never be tolerated again. 
This will not only be the feeling of the millions of men 
who will return from the front, the men who will return 
from the mire of the trenches and the nightmare of high 
explosives, but it will be the feeling of millions who 
remained behind to suffer, the mothers and the sisters 
who remained behind to suffer, and whose daily task it 
has been to scan the casualty lists in the newspapers. I 
am sure this war has burnt into the souls of all this 
lesson, which perhaps we never should have learned 
otherwise, the lesson that so far as it is possible in human 
power this thing should never be tolerated again. Now 
I think it is very important that there should be this 



A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 53 

natural condition created for a better order of things — the 
strong feeling, that is to say, that a state of affairs such 
as we have drifted to in oui present civilisation should 
never be allowed again. And when Europe rises from 
her sick bed in a long period of convalescence, as no 
doubt she will have to do, the germs of many good ideas 
will be able to develop in her, and let it be our effort 
to see that among those germs none will develop more 
strongly and more vigorously than this idea of peace 
which we are here this afternoon to foster. 

But I feel sure that this war has done something more 
than merely create this desire, this will to peace — this war 
has carried us to fundamentals, and that is a very im- 
portant matter. In recent years we have had quite 
enough talk of peace and all the paraphernalia of peace. 
We have had Hague Conferences ; we have had peace 
treaties in large numbers. Our experience has been that 
whilst we were talking of peace, whilst we were at those 
conferences, whilst we w r ere plastering the world with 
peace treaties, all the time the real danger was growing; 
all the time the war spirit was rising; all the time there 
was this arming in the dark, and this scheming which has 
at last broken out in this great conflict over the world. 
I think that the war has shown us that there is the very 
greatest danger in merely believing in paper and in in- 
stitutions, and what we want to. see brought about is 
not merely agreements between the nations, but we must 
have this change in the hearts of men; we must have 
this foundation in the hearts of men which will be a 
good basis for any agreements to rest on, otherwise 
these agreements and these institutions will be so many 
scraps of paper again. I think this war has carried us 
deep down to the bedrock of honesty and sincerity on 



54 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

which alone any lasting institutions for mankind can 
be built up. I have laboured this point because I think 
it is very important. I think there is always a tempta- 
tion for reformers to believe in paper and machinery. 
We fight so hard to achieve anything that when we 
have it in black and white we are apt to think 
we have attained our end. When we have a law on 
the statute book we think we have carried our reform, 
and then we fold our hands and we allow the thing to 
go by itself. And thereafter it often goes wrong. 

This war has taught us that we are dealing not merely 
with institutions, or with treaties, or with laws, but that 
we have to deal with something far more serious. If 
there is to be peace in future in the world, then there 
must be created as a basis for it all a strong, healthy, 
sound public opinion; a public opinion which will be 
the best guarantee of peace, which will see that Gov- 
ernments are kept in order and that diplomats are kept 
in order. And it is only in proportion as that result is 
achieved that we can have any reasonable confidence 
that there will be peace in the world in the future. I 
think that is the first and the most important condition 
of future peace. 

Now I mention what occurs to me as the second con- 
dition, also very important, and that is that at the end 
of this war we must conclude a good peace, because I 
do not see how you are going to have a perpetual peace, 
or the chance of perpetual peace, in future if this war is 
going to be ended like so many other wars as a mere 
patchwork compromise between various conflicting in- 
terests. ^ The war has carried us to the depths, let us 
build from the depths. It is only when we have, as the 
result of this war and of the peace treaty that will 



A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 55 

follow it, the establishment of the principle that nations 
will decide their own fate, that there will be the free 
consent of nations about their own destiny and their own 
disposal — it is only then that it will be possible to talk 
about the maintenance of peace in the future, ^he sub- 
ject is very difficult, and I am not going to discuss peace 
terms this afternoon. This is not the place, nor am I 
the person, to do so. But I can well understand that 
one of the most important conditions of future peace 
will be a peace treaty which will be a satisfactory con- 
clusion of this war, a conclusion which will establish 
that nations will no longer as in former years be dis- 
posed of by alien statesmen and Governments ; that they 
will not be parcelled and chopped up so as to be di- 
vided among the big Powers of the world; that they 
shall have the chance to decide their own fate. On 
that basis alone — on that basis of the national — will you 
be able to build the system of the supernational, the in- 
ternational, which we are aiming at. I am sure it is 
only on this basis of the free consent of nations, on this 
good sound national basis, that the proper international, 
supernational order which we are aiming at can pos- 
sibly be built up in the future. ■ 

The third condition of lasting peace has been stated 
by Lord Bryce, and that is that in some form or other 
we must bring about a league or a union of nations 
with some common organ of consultation on all vital 
issues. Of course the matter is extremely difficult, 
and I am not, as I have said, in a position to dogmatise, 
and in my own mind I am not clear as to the best course 
to pursue. I can quite well see that we may fail in our 
object if we start with too elaborate or too ambitious a 
scheme. The subject is enormously difficult, and you 



56 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

can by trying to achieve too much fail in achieving any- 
thing at all, and I must honestly confess that all the 
schemes that I have heard of so far have failed to carry 
conviction to my mind that they are practical and that 
they will achieve the objects we have in view. I would 
favour something more elastic, something more flexible, 
something which will be capable of adapting itself to 
the very complex circumstances which arise from time 
to time in our complex European relations, and it is 
perhaps possible in that way to achieve more real good. 
Now I would throw out a suggestion here that the time 
has come, especially now that America is also in this 
war, when more ample consideration should be given to 
the details of the subject. I know a great literature has 
already gathered round this subject of the common insti- 
tutions, the common organs for a League of Nations. 
But I am sure the matter is more difficult than has been 
shown in any book that I have read on the subject, and 
I would throw out the suggestion that the time has 
come when an Anglo-American Committee should be 
appointed to go thoroughly into it. As Lord Bryce 
has pointed out, a great deal of consideration has been 
given to the subject in America. America has been so 
far from the danger that she has built up an ideal in 
the clouds, whereas here in Europe we labour in the 
trough of the sea. America has got there too now, and 
if we could now bring together not only the idealists, but 
also practical men, men of experience, men who know 
the difficult ways of the world and the bad ways of the 
world — if we could bring them together in a committee 
to thrash out a detailed scheme, it would be possible 
to have something more practical than anything we have 



A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 57 

yet seen on this subject, which might be invaluable when 
the time for peace negotiations arrives. . 

I throw out this suggestion of an Anglo-American 
Committee as one that is worthy of consideration. 

There remains another condition which Lord Bryce 
has referred to, and which is of the essence of the scheme 
before us — the condition, namely, that in any arrange- 
ment for future peace there should be at the back of it 
some sanction, some force — otherwise it remains merely 
talk, otherwise it remains simply a vision. A nation 
which has got off the rails, or intends to get off the rails, 
must know that in the last resort the League of Nations 
against her are going to use force, and are going to force 
her on the right rails if she is not going willingly to 
come back. It is not merely sufficient for a conference 
to meet from time to time like an Areopagus to discuss 
questions ; but there must be a union which has force 
behind it and which is bound to use that force when the 
occasion arises. What force has to be used, and in 
what form or measure it is to be used, that, of course, 
is a very difficult question. You know the plan this 
Society and also the American Society favours is of a 
more limited character, and would apply force not to 
prevent war, but to ensure consultation ; to ensure inquiry 
and to afford a certain time for consideration and inquiry 
and for a decision to be arrived at. That is the only 
part which is really sanctioned in the present scheme. It 
is another question what sort of sanction ought to be 
applied. Ought nations to go to war at once if it is 
necessary to keep the peace, or should they go in for a 
more limited application of force, like a financial boycott 
or a blockade of communications, or a pacific blockade 
or something of the kind? These are all questions of 



58 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

the greatest difficulty which might be threshed out care- 
fully in an international committee such as I have sug- 
gested. 

There remains another question not touched upon in 
our programme, which I also consider of the most vital 
importance, and that is the question of disarmament. It 
is a very difficult question — more difficult than any other 
aspect of the subject, but from many points of view the 
most important. It is no use trying to prevent war 
when nations are armed to the teeth. If Governments 
are allowed with impunity to prepare for war over a 
long process of years, to consolidate all their resources 
on a military basis with a view to making an attack 
such as we have seen in the present war, then inevitably 
you reach a point when not even a League of Nations 
is sufficiently strong to withstand the deluge. And how- 
ever difficult— and it is a most difficult subject when 
it is thoroughly gone into — it seems to me that this mat- 
ter also will have to be dealt with in some form or an- 
other and in some degree or another — namely, the de- 
vising of plans which will lead to the abolition or diminu- 
tion of armaments and to less recourse being had by 
States to warlike preparations in future. 

There is one point more which I consider essential 
in any scheme which can be considered workable, and 
that is, you want not only a court of law, you want not 
only a police force, but you want a periodic conference 
or other institution which will be able to change the sit- 
uation in civilisation from time to time. The great weak- 
ness of the Holy Alliance that followed the Napoleonic 
wars was just this, that it was simply a court to main- 
tain the status quo — to ensure that no change took place 



A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 59 

and that things were maintained in that blissful state in 
which they were left by the Battle of Waterloo. 

You know that below that conservative crust of the 
Holy Alliance there were seething all the great forces 
which broke forth in the nineteenth century; and believe 
me that the position will be far worse after this war 
than after Waterloo. I am sure that we have entered 
into an era of great change and unsettlement and of 
movement in all directions. The foundation stones of 
society have been loosened, so to say, and you may be 
sure that for generations to come there will be a great 
deal of unsettlement and change, if not always of prog- 
ress, then of movement of some kind of another, and 
you want an institution which will not be merely of a 
conservative character with the object of maintaining 
and preserving peace, because there are sometimes inter- 
ests that are more important than peace. You will get to 
a stage after this war when new creations will be more 
valuable than the preservation of the status quo. And 
such creations will have to be faced in the twentieth cen- 
tury even more probably than in previous centuries. And 
therefore you do not want a body that will merely pass 
judgment and see that it is carried out, but one which 
will meet from time to time and revise the situation and 
liberate those forces of progress which must have an 
outlet unless there is to be another convulsion. 

One more consideration — and it is this. I do not 
refer to this as a condition of any future peace treaty, 
but I think it is most important and essential that the 
fundamental provisions to safeguard peace in future 
should be included in the peace treaty itself which is 
made after this war. This war has not been fought, at 
any rate as far as we are concerned, for the purpose 



60 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

r 

of gain or material interests. Millions of men have given 
their lives in this war, millions more are prepared to give 
their lives in this war in order to achieve a good peace 
and to ensure it for the future, and I think it would be 
the proper course that the peace treaty which is con- 
cluded after this war shall contain as an integral part 
of it the fundamental provisions, not in detail, but in 
principle, which will safeguard the future peace of the 
world. If that is done, then this war will not have been 
fought in vain. If that is done, I am sure that out of the 
horrors and sorrows of this, probably the greatest trag- 
edy of the world, will have been born a great hope 
for the future of the world, and in that way this peace 
treaty which will conclude this war will become a real 
Magna Charta for the whole of humanity hereafter. I 
hope the statesmen of Europe at the conclusion of peace 
will regard the matter from that high standpoint. 



FREEDOM 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Guildhall 
on the occasion of the presentation to him of the Freedom 
of the City of London, May ist, 19 17. 



FREEDOM 

I am very sensible of the great honour done me to-day. 
You have to-day enrolled my name among many of the 
greatest and most illustrious names in the history of your 
City and your people. 

I will not suppose that -any merits of mine have justified 
this distinction, although I confess I am personally very 
proud and grateful for the action you have taken; and 
the people of South Africa, and especially the small peo- 
ple to whom I am proud to belong, will also feel very 
greatly pleased and honoured. Ten years ago you be- 
stowed the great gift of your Freedom on my leader, 
General Botha, who has ever since, through sunshine 
and through storm, led the people of South Africa with 
a firm, wise, and kindly hand; under whose guidance 
the enmities and antagonisms of the past are receding, 
and a new nation is slowly but surely being built up in 
that great land. No one will be more pleased to-day at 
the honour you have done me than my old friend and 
comrade in arms, whose heavy task in far South Africa 
has prevented him from attending the Imperial War 
Cabinet on this occasion. I know your best wishes 
accompany him in his great work of statesmanship. 

There is another reason why I especially value this 
honour you have conferred on me to-day. It is be- 
cause of the traditions of your great City, and of the 
great and special part it has played in past centuries in 

63 



64 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

the political history of this country. In the great his- 
toric struggles of this country in the past the City of 
London always was the bulwark of liberty ; the place of 
refuge to which oppressed liberty could flee — and never 
fled in vain. Throughout the seventeenth century, while 
the foundations of political liberty and Parliamentary 
Government were being laid in this country, the City of 
London stood forth as the most conspicuous champion 
against the Stuarts. The memories of Hampden and 
Pym, of Cromwell and Dutch William, will always re- 
main inseparably associated with the traditions of your 
great City. Under your protection the foundations of 
free institutions were well and truly laid, and many gen- 
erations have since continued the structure. You chose 
the prize of greatest value, and many others have been 
added to you since. 

Centuries of prosperity followed, in which you and the 
nation grew and flourished and became rich beyond the 
dreams of avarice. And people whispered that you had 
become corrupted with wealth, and soft ; that the day of 
trial would find your leaders nerveless and yourselves 
wanting and unprepared. What was your answer? 
Your enemies forgot on what milk you had been nur- 
tured. Free men have the heart to do and dare any- 
thing. Without conscription or compulsion you raised 
millions of men; you transformed your industries from 
a peace to a war basis, and in the end you have become 
the financial, military, and moral mainstay of the Al- 
liance. Such are the fruits of liberty in these islands. 
Freedom, like wisdom, is once more justified of her chil- 
dren. 

And beyond these islands? Of the sixty million white 
inhabitants of the British Empire one-quarter live be- 



FREEDOM 65 

yond the seas. Scattered far away over the whole globe, 
apparently having no interest in the struggles and feuds 
of old Europe. Germany counted on their apathy, per- 
haps on their disruption. 

Yet see what they have done, and done quite voluntar- 
ily. And why have they made their magnificent effort? 
Not to help the Mother Country, but to help the cause 
which is as much theirs as hers, the cause of Freedom, the 
desire of all nations to work out their own salvation, with- 
out coercion, without the terror inspired by an ever-grow- 
ing, ever more insolent, threatening, and aggressive mili- 
tary autocracy. We shall never understand the real in- 
wardness of the effort of the British Empire until we rec- 
ognise that their fight is not for mere self-interest or 
mean, small issues, but for the greatest of all. It is be- 
cause all realise that the greatest, most essential, and most 
fundamental interest of humanity is at stake, that the old 
cause for which millions have in all ages sacrificed their 
all, once again is in danger, it is for this that you witness 
to-day this spontaneous uprising, not only among the 
nations of the British Empire, but of the world. 

Why has America at last also joined in the conflict? 
Some say it is the submarine, and some say it is Wilson ; 
some say American honour has been hurt by Germany; 
and some say that AmericaV is afraid of standing alone 
and isolated after the war. It may be none or some or 
all of these things. But it is far more than all these. 
Slowly, painfully, the people of America have come to 
recognise and understand what really is at stake. They 
have come to realise that it is once more the old historic 
issue, that it is the same as their old case of George 
Washington versus George Rex, the same as the case be- 
tween North and South, but now broadened so as to 



66 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

cover the whole world; the oldest and greatest of all 
issues which has been going on since the foundation of 
the world; the issue of freedom versus slavery, of de- 
mocracy versus autocracy, of national self-government 
against Imperial despotism. You will find it all set forth 
with matchless skill and burning eloquence in President 
Wilson's great historic message. Just as we had no op- 
tion in August, 1 914, so America has come to see that 
she had no option; unless freedom is once more to be 
endangered, not only in the old world, but also in the 
new; unless Russia was once more to be delivered over 
to the reaction ; unless Germany herself had to be finally 
given up as lost for ever. And remember even the soul 
of Germany will have to be redeemed before the end! 
Do we not see how under the terrific strain of this 
struggle the bonds of the military despotism that have 
shackled that and other peoples are already beginning to 
snap as the end is approaching? 

For the end is coming nearer. There are difficult 
weeks and months ahead of us, difficult, anxious, danger- 
ous. The spirit of our armies at the front is magnificent 
in its confidence and determination. Let the spirit of the 
nation be great enough to match that of its armies. Let 
us be neither too elated by victory nor too much depressed 
by ill-fortune. Let us be patient, constant, and prepared 
for any sacrifices. Remember greater forces are fight- 
ing for us than our armies or the armies of our Allies. 
The unseen forces are being mobilised all over Christen- 
dom by German outrages and even deeper causes. The 
spirit of freedom is on the wing, the Great Creative Spirit 
is once more moving among the nations in their unspeak- 
able anguish. Let us be strong and confident with the 
inspiration which comes from the cause for which we 



FREEDOM 67 

are fighting, and when the end comes — and it cannot 
now be so far off — let us in the hour of victory recognise 
that it was not so much the valour and strength of our 
armies, but far greater and deeper forces that have car- 
ried us to victory. 

I have laid emphasis on the cause of freedom for 
which we are fighting because I feel sure that in the grave 
dangers ahead of us the clear consciousness of that 
cause alone will strengthen us to hold on unflinchingly. 
And the circumstances of my own life have made me 
realise perhaps more than most people what that means, 
for I have seen what strength a people can derive from 
the causes for which it is fighting. In my day and 
country I have seen freedom go under, and I have seen 
freedom rise again. And I have seen the same beaten 
people rise again to fight for the same freedom, but no 
longer for themselves alone, but for the whole of the 
world. 

And the result of their labours is written large all 
over Africa south of the Equator. 

And to-day I see another vision. From the ancient 
Freedom of the City of London to the Freedom of Hu- 
manity in future! May that vision guide us through all 
vicissitudes to the end. 



THE FUTURE OF SOUTH AND 
CENTRAL AFRICA 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Savoy 
Hotel, London, on the occasion of the "South African 
Dinner" given in his honour on May 22nd, 191 7. 

The health of the guest was proposed by Lord Selborne, 
who presided. 



THE FUTURE OF SOUTH A1H) CENTRAL AFRICA 

I am deeply grateful to you for the reception which 
you have given me here to-night. I am thankful to you, 
Lord Selborne, for what you have said, even for the 
Platonic myth you have given us and for the conversa- 
tion with the mythical lady. Your words to-night carry 
me back to that period in our history when I was serv- 
ing under you and was a fellow-labourer with you, and 
what will probably remain the greatest creative epoch 
in the history of South Africa. And to-night again you 
are Chairman at this memorable meeting. 

The various South African societies, together with 
the Imperial Institute, have combined in order to do 
me this honour, and I am very glad to have you all 
together on this occasion. I know that there are many 
here to-night who have, at one time or another, differed 
from me. Sometimes the differences have been very 
acute, but to-night all these differences have been swal- 
lowed up and forgotten in the great constructive tasks in 
which we are all engaged. It is a matter of great grati- 
fication to me to think that after all, notwithstanding all 
those differences in the past, you can say to-night to me, 
"You have not done so badly after all." This function, 
of all the various functions I have so far attended, ap- 
peals most to me, because it is really not in honour of 
me, but in honour of that far-away dear land, which 
most of us have served and with which most of us have 

7i 



J2 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

been associated in the past. To-night we are really met 
together here as members of the South African family. 
Some born into it, some married into it, some old servants 
who have grown grey in her hard service and who have 
given the best years of their lives to that service — here 
we can all sit together, forgetting Europe, forgetting the 
storms raging outside, and our minds can travel back to 
the sun-filled spaces of Southern Africa, to its amaz- 
ing history, and its immense tasks. A great historian 
has said "On those whom the gods love they lavish in- 
finite joys and infinite sorrows." On that principle surely 
South Africa must be a special favourite of the gods. 
She has known joys and sorrows; she has known the 
deepest abasement and she has known the highest ex- 
altation. The history of South Africa is in many re- 
spects one of the true and great romances in modern 
history. One of the most wonderful episodes in that ro- 
mance you will probably have the opportunity soon to 
see in a cinematograph film which will be produced here 
in London called "Winning a Continent," in which scenes 
from the great Boer trek into the interior are represented. 
I hope you will all see it. 

When I look around to-night and I see all who are 
sitting here at this table, I feel, and you all feel, that 
we are lifted out of the world of commonplace into a 
strange world. We feel that whatever the past has been, 
whatever mistakes we have made — and we have all made 
mistakes — whatever services we have been able to render 
to our South Africa, a kind Providence has intervened 
and has woven all those mistakes and all those services 
into a strange and wonderful texture which we call the 
history of South Africa and of which we are very proud. 
When we look at that wonderful history we are all 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA 73 

cheered and encouraged to move forward in the hope that 
as our task has not been too difficult for us in the past it 
may not prove entirely beyond us in the future. 

There are very grave questions before South Africa, 
and these questions will probably increase in magnitude 
after this war. Now the Ten Plagues are being poured 
out over Europe in this war, and they will be followed 
by the Exodus in due course. You will see very large 
numbers of people, after this war, sick of the Old World 
and looking to the young countries for a new home where 
they may find peace. I am sure that many of you will 
find in our large country, our wide spaces, just that re- 
pose for body and soul that you desire. We look forward 
to great times, to great developments in South Africa, 
and it will be the task of our Governments in South 
Africa to make the best use of the unique opportunities 
for a forward -move that will be presented by the times 
that will follow the war. 

But in South Africa we always feel that there is some- 
thing more. With us it is never a question of merely 
material progress and of prosperity, although we are 
always very eager to have those good things too; we 
always feel that under our peculiar historical and racial 
conditions there are very large political problems in the 
background which always press for solution. And that 
is what gives a profound interest to life in South Africa. 
We have made very great progress in recent years. If 
you remember that it was within seven years of the Boer 
War that we had all the British Colonies of South Africa 
united in one great Union you will see how great and 
rapid that progress has been. But although we have 
achieved political union, our aim has always been far 
greater; we have aimed not only at political union, but 



74 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

also at national unity; and when you have to deal with 
very hard-headed races, such as our people in South 
Africa, both English and Dutch, you can well understand 
that it takes more than seven years to bring about that 
consummation. We have grave difficulties in this respect. 
We have different racial strains and different political 
tendencies. We have people in South Africa who prefer 
isolation, who prefer to stand aside from the great cur- 
rents that are carrying South Africa to her new and 
greater destiny. These are not merely Dutch, many of 
them are English. We have English fellow-citizens who 
will always remain English, to whom even the sunshine 
and the wide spaces of South Africa are not sufficient to 
bring about the great transformation of soul. We look 
forward patiently in such cases to the next generation. 
We have also a large section of my own people, the Dutch 
people in South Africa, who think that the best policy 
for them is to stand aside and to remain isolated. They 
think that in that way they will be better able to preserve 
their language, their traditions, and their national type, 
and that they will in that way not be swallowed up and 
be submerged by the new currents. They point to the 
precedent of Canada, where French-Canadians are also 
standing aside from the general current of Canadian 
life and national development for the same reasons. 
Now, you know, that is the issue which is being fought 
out now in South Africa, and has been fought out in 
recent years more acutely than ever before. The policy 
General Botha and his associates have stood for is that 
we must have national unity in South Africa as the one 
true basis of future stability and strength — and that na- 
tional unity is entirely consistent with the preservation 
of our language, our traditions, our cultural interests, and 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA 75 

all that is dear to us in our past. The view we have 
taken is this, that the different elements in our white 
populations ought really to be used to build up a stronger 
and more powerful nation than would have been possible 
if we had consisted purely of one particular strain. All 
great Imperial peoples really are a mixture of various 
stocks. Your own history is one of the completest proofs 
of that doctrine, and it is only in recent years that this 
remarkable doctrine of the pure race has come into vogue, 
and largely in Germany. The man who has preached 
that doctrine most eloquently is a Germanised English- 
man, Houston Chamberlain. The doctrine is to the 
effect that the governing races of the world are pure 
races, and that they simply debase themselves and be- 
come degenerate if mixed with alien blood. They must 
remain pure, and in so far as they do so they will play 
a great part in the world. It is more than hinted at that 
the German race must guide the world because it is one 
of these pure races. What arrant nonsense ! We do not 
pretend in South Africa to listen to these syren voices. 
We want to create a blend out of the various national- 
ities and to create a new South African nation out of our 
allied racial stocks, and if we succeed in doing that we 
shall achieve a new nationality embracing and harmonis- 
ing our various traits and blending them all into a richer 
national type than could otherwise have been achieved. 
The ideal of national unity means a continuous effort 
towards better relations, towards mutual respect and for- 
bearance, towards co-operation, and that breadth of view 
and character which will be the most potent instrument 
for dealing with our other problems. Although in South 
Africa our national progress is marked by the ox-wagon 



y6 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

and not by the train or aeroplane, I am sure in the end 
we shall achieve success and a new nationhood. 

And this is all the more important because in South 
Africa we are not merely a white man's country. Our 
problem of white racial unity is being solved in the midst, 
of the black environment in South Africa. Whether we 
shall succeed in solving that other larger question of the 
black man's future depends on many factors on which 
no one could feel very much assurance at present. We 
know that on the African Continent at various times 
there have been attempts at civilisation. We read of a. 
great Saracen civilisation in Central Africa, and of the 
University of Timbuctoo, to which students came from, 
other parts of the world. Rhodesia also shows signs of 
former civilisation. Where are those civilisations now? 
They have all disappeared, and barbarism once more 
rules over the land and makes the thoughtful man ner- 
vous about the white man's future in Southern Africa- 
There are many people in South Africa — and not very 
foolish people either — who do not feel certain that our 
white experiment will be a permanent success, or that 
we shall ever succeed in making a white man's land of 
Southern Africa ; but, at any rate, we mean to press on 
with the experiment. It has now been in progress for 
some two hundred and fifty years, as you know, and per- 
haps the way we have set about it may be the right way. 
Former civilisations in Africa have existed mostly for 
the purpose of exploiting the native populations, and in 
that way, and probably also through intermixture of 
blood carried in them the seeds of decay. We have 
started by creating a new white base in South Africa, and 
to-day we are in a position to move forward towards the 
North and the civilisation of the African Continent. Our 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA 77 

problem is a very difficult one, however ; quite unique in 
its way. In the United States there is a similar problem 
of black and white with the negro population. But there 
you have had an overwhelming white population with 
a smaller negro element in the midst of it. In South 
Africa the situation is reversed. There you have an 
overwhelming black population with a small white popu- 
lation which has got a footing there and which has been 
trying to make that footing secure for more than two 
centuries. 

You will therefore understand that a problem like that 
is not only uncertain in its ultimate prospects, but is most 
difficult in the manner that it should be dealt with. 
Much experience has been gained, and there are indica- 
tions that we have come to some certain results. You re- 
member how some Christian missionaries, who went to 
South Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century 
in their full belief in human brotherhood, proceeded to 
marry native wives to prove the faith that was in them. 
We have gained sufficient experience since then to smile 
at that point of view. With us there are certain axioms 
now in regard to the relations of white and black; and 
the principal one is "no intermixture of blood between 
the two colours." It is probably true that earlier civilisa- 
tions have largely failed because that principle was never 
recognised, civilising races being rapidly submerged in 
the quicksands of the African blood. It has now become 
an accepted axiom in our dealings with the natives that 
it is dishonourable to mix white and black blood. 

We have settled another axiom, and that is that in all 
our dealings with the natives we must build our practice 
on what I believe Lord Cromer has called the granite 
bedrock of the Christian moral code. Honesty, fair-play, 



78 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

justice, and the ordinary Christian virtues must be the 
basis of all our relations with the natives. We don't al- 
ways practise them. We don't always practise that ex- 
alted doctrine, but the vast bulk of the white population 
in South Africa believe sincerely in that doctrine as cor- 
rect and true ; they are convinced that they must stick to 
the fundamental Christian morality if they want to do 
their duty to the natives and make a success of their great 
country. Of course, this doctrine applies to other coun- 
tries besides South Africa. If you ask me what is wrong 
with Europe — although no wise man should express an 
opinion on such a great matter — I should say the moral 
basis in Europe, the bedrock of the Christian moral code, 
has become undermined and can no longer support all 
that superstructure of economic and industrial prosperity 
which the last century has built up on it, and the vast 
whole is now sagging. The same argument applies much 
more to the natives of Africa. Natives have the simplest 
minds, understand only the simplest ideas or ideals, and 
are almost animal-like in the simplicity of their minds and 
ways. If we want to make a success of our native policy 
in South Africa we shall have to proceed on the simplest 
moral lines and on that basis of the Christian moral code. 
I think we are all agreed on those two points — on what I 
have called the racial and moral axioms. 

I wish we had made more progress and also discovered 
some political axiom and knowledge how to deal politi- 
cally with our immense native problem. But although in 
this regard nothing can be taken as axiomatic, we have 
gained a great deal of experience in our history, and there 
is now shaping in South Africa a policy which is be- 
coming expressed in our institutions which may have very 
far-reaching effects in the future civilisation of the Af- 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA 79 

rican Continent. We have realised that political ideas 
which apply to our white civilisation largely do not apply 
to the administration of native affairs. To apply the 
same institutions on an equal basis to white and black 
alike does not lead to the best results, and so a practice 
has grown up in South Africa of creating parallel insti- 
tutions — giving the natives their own separate institutions 
on parallel lines with institutions for whites. It may be 
that on those parallel lines we may yet be able to solve a 
problem which may otherwise be insoluble. More than 
twenty years ago, as many of you remember, an experi- 
ment in native self-government was begun by Cecil 
Rhodes in the old Cape Colony which gave local insti- 
tutions to the natives in the Glen Grey reserve. That 
principle has been extended over a large part of the old 
Transkeian territories, and so successful has it been that 
when we came to framing the Act of Union an appendix 
was added about the future administration of the Pro- 
tectorates when they should become incorporated into the 
Union. This appendix was largely the work of our chair- 
man, Lord Selborne. He fought with extraordinary ten- 
acity for that appendix, and I am not sure, although I 
did not see the importance of the matter in those days, 
whether in the distant future the South Africa Act will 
not be remembered as much for its appendix as for its 
principal contents. This appendix laid down that the 
native territories in South Africa should be governed 
apart from the Parliamentary institutions of the Union 
and on different lines which would achieve the principle 
of native self-government. Subsequently Commissions 
have been appointed in South Africa to inquire into na- 
tive questions, and more and more the trend of opinion 
has hardened in the same direction. We have felt more 



80 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

and more that if we are to solve our native question it 
is useless to try to govern black and white in the same 
system, to subject them to the same institutions of gov- 
ernment and legislation. They are different not only in 
colour but in minds and in political capacity, and their 
political institutions should be different, while always pro- 
ceeding on the basis of self-government. One very im- 
portant Commission had, I believe, Sir Godfrey Lagden 
as chairman, and as a result of that and other Commis- 
sions we have now legislation before the Parliament of 
the Union in which an attempt is made to put into shape 
these ideas I am talking of, and to create all over South 
Africa, wherever there are any considerable native com- 
munities, independent self-governing institutions for 
them. Instead of mixing up black and white in the old 
haphazard way, which instead of lifting up the black de- 
graded the white, we are now trying to lay down a policy 
of keeping them apart as much as possible in our institu- 
tions. In land ownership settlement and forms of govern- 
ment we are trying to keep them apart, and in that way 
laying down in outline a general policy which it may take 
a hundred years to work out, but which in the end may 
be the solution of our native problem. Thus in South 
Africa you will have in the long run large areas culti- 
vated by blacks and governed by blacks, where they will 
look after themselves in all their forms of living and de- 
velopment, while in the rest of the country you will have 
your white communities, which will govern themselves 
separately according to the accepted European principles. 
The natives will, of course, be free to go and to work in 
the white areas, but as far as possible the administra- 
tion of white and black areas will be separated, and such 
that each will be satisfied and developed according to its 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA 81 

own proper lines. This is the attempt which we are 
making now in South Africa to solve the juxtaposition 
of white and black in the same country, and although the 
principles underlying our legislation could not be con- 
sidered in any way axiomatic, I am sure that we are 
groping towards the right lines, which may in the end 
tend to be the solution of the most difficult problem con- 
fronting us. 

As I have already said, we have started in previous 
times to civilise Africa from the North. All these at- 
tempts at civilisation from the North have failed. We 
now try to proceed from the other end — from South 
Africa. We have built up a stable white community in 
the south of the Continent and given them a training for 
two hundred years, and they have learned the ways of 
Africa, which are not the ways of other parts of the 
world. And now we are ready to go forward, and, as 
you know, in the last few decades enormous progress 
has already been made in this expansion towards the 
North. All our people in South Africa, English as well 
as Dutch, have taken part in this great movement towards 
the North, which is proceeding ever farther, and the time 
is coming when it will be almost a misnomer to speak of 
''South" Africa, because the northern limits of our civili- 
sation will have gone so far that it will be almost impos- 
sible to use the word "South", any more except in re- 
minder of our original starting-point. 

Great developments have taken place not only in South- 
ern Africa, but in Central Africa in our day. You will 
remember that only fifty or sixty years ago Central Af- 
rica was a place for the explorer and discoverer, a land 
of mystery, of pigmies and other wonders of which we 
read in the books of Stanley and others. In a couple of 



82 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

decades Central Africa has marched right into the centre 
of world politics, and to-night in this great assembly we 
are not only interested in Southern Africa, but also those 
other enormous territories further north which our troops 
from South Africa and other parts of the Empire have 
conquered and occupied. What the future of that coun- 
try will be no one knows. I must say that my experience 
in East Africa has opened my eyes to many very serious 
dangers that threaten the future not only of Southern 
Africa, but also of Europe. We have seen, what we 
had never known before, what enormously valuable mili- 
tary material lay in the Black Continent. You are aware 
of the great German scheme which existed before the 
war, and which no doubt is still in the background of 
many minds in Germany, of creating a great Central 
African Empire which would embrace not only the Cam- 
eroons and East Africa, but also the Portuguese Colonies 
and the Congo — an extensive area which would have a 
very large population and would not only be one of the 
most valuable tropical parts of the world, but in which 
it would be possible to train one of the most powerful 
black armies of the world. We were not aware of the 
great military value of the natives until this war. This 
war has been an eye-opener in many new directions. It 
will be a serious question for the statesmen of the Em- 
pire and Europe, whether they are going to allow a state 
of affairs like that to be possible, and to become a menace 
not only to Africa, but perhaps to Europe itself. I hope 
that one of the results of this war will be some arrange- 
ment or convention among the nations interested in Cen- 
tral Africa by which the military training of natives in 
that area will be prevented, as we have prevented it in 
South Africa. It can well be foreseen that armies may 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA 83 

yet be trained there, which under proper leading might 
prove a danger to civilisation itself. I hope that will be 
borne in mind when the day for the settlement in Africa 
comes up for consideration. 

You will have further questions in regard to the ter- 
ritorial settlement of Central Africa which will follow 
the war. We are now, after the conquest of the German 
Colonies, in the happy position of having a through land 
route from Egypt to the Cape. We are in the secure 
position of having no danger on the Atlantic seaboard 
or on the Indian seaboard to our very essential sea com- 
munications as an Empire. What will happen to these 
communications after the settlement will depend on that 
settlement itself, but I hope it will be borne in mind that 
East Africa gives us not only this through land com- 
munication from one end of the Continent to the other, 
but that East Africa also ensures to us the safety of the 
sea route around the Cape and the sea route through the 
Red Sea to the East. It is a matter of gratification to us 
South Africans here to-night that South African troops 
have taken such a large and leading share in securing 
these extremely valuable results. I sincerely hope that, 
whatever settlement is come to, these larger considera- 
tions which I have referred to will be borne in mind. 

We shall always have a difficult question not only in 
Central, but in Southern Africa. Unlike other British 
Dominions, our future as a white civilisation is not as- 
sured for the reasons which I have given. Many thought- 
ful people are in doubt about our future, and in any case 
no cheap and easy victory will be scored in South Africa. 
We know we have tremendous problems to contend with. 
We know we have tremendous tasks before us, and in 
dealing with these problems and in trying to fulfil these 



84 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

tasks one generation of South Africans after another 
will brace its nerves and strengthen its intellect and 
broaden its mind and character. Although these difficul- 
ties may seem to us, and indeed are, grave perils to our 
future, I trust that in the long run these difficulties may- 
prove a blessing in disguise, and may prove to have af- 
forded the training school for a large-minded, broad- 
minded, magnanimous race, capable not only of weld- 
ing together different racial elements into a new and 
richer national type, but capable of dealing as no other 
white race in history has ever dealt with the question of 
the relations between black and white. 

Our future is difficult and uncertain, and I would ask 
you — here in the centre of the Empire — to bear in mind 
that we in South Africa are dealing with enormous prob- 
lems on which you and we do not always see eye to eye. 
But when differences of opinion do occur from time to 
time, I ask you generously to bear in mind that we in 
South Africa are dealing, as well as we can, with as 
great problems as you are ever called upon to face in 
your more complex society. 



RUSSIA 

THE NEED OF DISCIPLINE AND 

ORGANISATION 



A Speech delivered by General Smuts at the Russian 
Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries on May 2>oth, 1917- 



RUSSIA 
THE NEED OF DISCIPLINE AND ORGANISATION 

You often see in the papers, and no doubt you hear 
privately expressed, a concern about the situation in 
Russia. These expressions are sometimes distorted and, 
far away, they are misunderstood, with the result that 
our very best friends in Russia are under the impression 
that people in England and other democratic countries 
are critical of what has been happening in Russia. So 
far from being critical, our sympathy is almost too deep 
for words. These expressions of concern are due en- 
tirely to the solicitude we feel for the Russian people in 
the trials through which they are passing, and to the 
solicitude we also feel for everybody in this terrible 
crisis. I have heard nowhere in England in the few 
months that I have been here, and since the Russian 
Revolution, a word from anybody tending to minimise 
the enormous importance of the events that have trans- 
pired in Russia. Everybody here, all classes of the com- 
munity, are impressed with the fact that this is probably 
the greatest event in the whole of the war. If nothing 
further were to happen and no other result but this Revo- 
lution, then posterity will say that this war has not been 
in vain. 

Two recent events seem to me to put this enormous 
panorama of events in the right setting — the revolution 
in Russia and the coming in of the United States. If 

87 



88 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

these two events had not happened, then I think there 
would not have been a true and correct perspective for 
this vast drama which is now being enacted. If America 
had not come in, it would have been an Old-World busi- 
ness, and any peace which would have followed in due 
course, however good, however democratic, would have 
been an Old-World peace, an Old-World arrangement. 
But America has come in ; the New has come in to redress 
the balance of the Old World; and in that way we have 
the assurance that the peace that will come eventually — 
and we pray that it will come as early as possible — will 
be a world peace ; will not be merely a European peace, 
but a world peace embracing all the nations and all the 
democracies of the world. 

With regard to the other event, which is possibly of 
even greater importance — the Revolution in Russia — this 
seems to me to bring about an achievement, a result, 
which it otherwise might have taken another fifty years 
or a century of tragedy and of suffering to have brought 
about. The enormous strain of this war has broken 
the bonds of the Russian people, and once more they 
stand free and able to direct their own destinies. I can 
assure the Russian people that there is not in this country 
a man, a woman, or a child that does not sympathise 
profoundly with them, that does not rejoice in the heart- 
iest manner with Russia in the events that have taken 
place there recently. 

I remember that the Germans have always held up 
the Russians as a barbarous Power. They have always 
used this argument even against England. They say, 
"See what you are doing now. You are a part of the 
great Teutonic race; you are a civilised Power, not so 
highly civilised as we are, it is true ; you are lagging be- 



RUSSIA 89 

hind somewhat. At any rate, we will give you the benefit 
of the doubt, and call you a civilised branch of the great 
Teutonic race. See what you are doing. You are help- 
ing the degenerate Latins of Southern Europe, France, 
and Italy; and on the other hand you are helping that 
barbarous power of Russia which can only be a danger 
to European peace and civilisation." That is the Ger- 
man argument. They look upon the Russians as bar- 
barians, and upon the Russian power as a threat to the 
future of civilisation. 

I have heard these arguments often in private conver- 
sation, and read them in books and in articles, but what 
is the truth? What was the state of affairs one hundred 
years ago under Napoleon? Who saved Europe then? 
Was it not the "barbarous" power of Russia? When 
Prussia was under the heel of France, and the Prussian 
King a satellite of Napoleon, who saved Europe and de- 
stroyed Napoleon's army? Russia on that occasion, as 
on previous occasions, came in to save the world, and 
our hope and prayer in this great struggle is that Russia 
will do it once more. We wish the people of Russia 
well. We look forward to the day when that enormous 
Power which is now seething in the revolutionary crisis 
through which it is passing will concentrate itself, or- 
ganise itself, and discipline itself, and then march again 
at the head of civilisation, and help to break down this 
much-vaunted German Kultur, which is now the real 
threat to the civilisation of the world. 

There is another point. Russia has always and con- 
sistently fought Turkey — that barbarous Power which 
has been trying to overwhelm Christendom from the 
South. All the other European Powers have anything but 
a clean record in this matter; even we in England have 



90 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

coquetted from time to time with the "bloody Turk." 
Russia has never done it. Russia has always been true 
to her insight, her instincts, and she has gone for the 
Turk whenever she has seen him. In this war nobody 
has struck harder blows at the Turk than Russia, and 
it is our wish and our hope and our trust that Russia 
will continue to bear her share in smashing this power 
of the Turk, because if there is one result we want to 
achieve in this war it is that the Turk shall never tyran- 
nise any more over any Christian population. We have 
nothing against the Turks in their homeland, but we 
must see, and Russia must help us in bringing it about, 
that this tyranny with which Turkey has ruled over 
Christian nations must cease for ever. 

One of the results of the war will be the freeing and 
liberation of all the peoples who have groaned for hun- 
dreds of years under Turkish power. That has been the 
traditional policy of Russia, and we hope and trust 
she will remain true to that policy, and will see that no 
Christian nation is left under the rule of Turkey at the 
end of this war. 

Autocratic Russia has played a great part in the his- 
tory of the world, but I am sure there is a far greater 
future still before free democratic Russia. But, of 
course, young liberty is like young wine — it mounts to 
your head sometimes, and liberty, as a force in the world, 
requires organisation and discipline. Autocracy is usu- 
ally organised, but freedom is never properly organised. 
It acts by itself and its own internal impulse, but in times 
like these there must be much more than merely idealistic 
impulse. With the impulse of freedom — a noble sensa- 
tion of freedom, moving through a great people — there 
must be organisation, and there must be discipline. I feel 



RUSSIA 91 

sure that is what the Russian people are determined to 
achieve. They are learning to-day the greatest lesson of 
life — that to be free you must work very hard and school 
yourself to self-discipline. They have the sensation of 
freedom, now that their bonds and shackles are gone, and 
no doubt they feel the joy, the intoxication, of their new 
experience; but they are living in a world which is not 
governed by formulas, however cleverly devised, but in 
a world of brute force, and unless that world is smashed 
even liberty itself will suffer and perish. 

Germany, of course, is prepared to do anything. She 
will swallow all the nice formulas which Russian de- 
mocracy or any other democracy may devise, and she 
will swallow Russia and democracy as well. ' She is 
clever enough to do that. She sits to-day with Belgium, 
Serbia, most of Rumania, and twenty-five millions of 
Russians, and people who formerly belonged to the Rus- 
sian Empire ; she has swallowed an enormous portion 
of Europe. Certainly, no word that official Germany has 
spoken leads us to infer that she will disgorge all these 
without being forced to do so. The official words spoken 
by the German Chancellor are all to this effect — they are 
prepared to make peace, longing for peace, thinking of 
peace, and praying for peace on the basis of the German 
victories, that is, on the basis of what they have bitten 
off and are now trying to digest in Central Europe and 
in other parts of Europe. Such a peace will never hap- 
pen. You may talk about peace without annexations or 
indemnities, but you must remember you are talking to 
a people who will swallow every formula, and swallow 
you in the end if you are not careful. 

There is no doubt that this is a case for hard fighting. 
Germany, as Bismarck once said, is founded on blood and 



92 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

iron, and not on ideals and formulas; and what was 
brought about by blood and iron will have to be undone 
and smashed in the same way. Then only will it be 
possible for the Russian democracy, like other democra- 
cies in the world, to feel safety and security once more, 
and go towards the future with a feeling of optimism. I 
will therefore, while expressing the profoundest sym- 
pathy with our Russian comrades and the Russian people, 
say to them : Do not forget the others who are suffer- 
ing. Do not forget Belgium. 

Belgium is crushed under the German heel to-day, but 
it is not of her choosing and her doing. The German 
Chancellor has himself admitted it was a sin that had 
been done, but they will never renounce the evil fruits 
of their victory unless forced to do so. I would appeal 
to our Russian brethren to remember Belgium. I have 
had occasion to see in other parts of the world what gal- 
lant efforts Belgium has been making. In East Africa 
and in Central Africa I saw some thousands of Belgian 
troops fighting, as it were, next door to me, fighting brave- 
ly and well and with the best results. As regards the Bel- 
gian people, not only the English, but all the other de- 
mocracies in the world ought to stand by them to the 
very end for the services they have rendered; and I am 
sure that nothing is further from the minds of the Rus- 
sian democracy than to leave her Belgian ally in the 
lurch in the agony through which she is passing now. I 
am sure nothing is further from their minds, whatever 
formula may be for the moment devised in order to 
find a way to peace. 

Take again the case of Serbia. Serbia was the reason 
why Russia went to war. She was going to be crushed 
under the Austrian heel, and Russia said this shall not 



RUSSIA 93 

be allowed. Serbia has in that way become the occasion 
probably of the greatest movement for freedom the 
world has ever seen. Are we going to forget Serbia? 
No ! We must stand by those little martyr peoples who 
have stood by the great causes of the world. If the great 
democracies of the world become tired, if they become 
faint, if they halt by the way, if they leave those little 
ones in the lurch, then they shall pay for it in future wars 
more bloody than human eye can foresee. I am sure 
we shall stand by those little ones. They have gone 
under, but we have not gone under. England and 
America, France and Russia, have not gone under, and 
we shall see them through, and shame on us if ever the 
least thought enters our minds of not seeing them 
through. 

I need not refer to the other smaller countries who 
have gone under, but we who are strong, we who have 
achieved power, have also the heart and courage to see 
it through, and to see that peace is made which shall 
bring a free world not only for the big but for the little 
ones. I am sure that in saying this I am expressing the 
thoughts and feelings of every Englishman and every 
Russian and every democrat in the world. 

You in this country have been accustomed for hundreds 
of years to democratic government. Democracy is in 
your blood, and organisation and discipline are part of 
your national culture. But other people are not as equally 
favoured as you in that respect. You have been divided 
off from the world, and you have been free to develop 
free institutions and free modes of life which make you 
now the bulwark of liberty. Russia has not attained 
that position yet, and she is passing through this tre- 
mendous struggle of trying to create, during the greatest 



94 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

war that has ever been seen, institutions for her internal 
government, organisation, and discipline. 

I cannot too strongly impress upon the Russian people 
that they must see this thing through and must achieve 
success in their internal organisation. They must have 
discipline and organisation, not only in the armies at the 
front, but in all their transport services, in their fac- 
tories, in all the activities of life far behind the lines. 
If they will to be free they must also will to organise 
and discipline themselves, and in such a way conserve 
this great, priceless gift which Providence has now put 
into their hands. English people wish them the greatest 
success in their efforts. 

We have achieved now what otherwise would have 
been impossible — a union of all the free democracies in 
the world. Now for the first time you have the great 
historical issue brought before you in the sharpest form. 
On the one hand you have the autocracies of Germany, 
Austria, and Turkey. What a combination ! You might 
even add the Devil to that combination, and I think he is 
at present their strongest ally. On the other hand, you 
have the free nations of the world, who never dreamt of 
this business, who have been pounced upon, and who 
have fought to gain time in order that freedom may 
have the chance to organise itself in this great conflict. 
We have had that time. The war has lasted long enough 
for us to organise ourselves and prepare for this struggle. 
Now the free democracies of the world are in a position 
to move forward towards ending this war. Let nobody 
halt. America has come in, and Russia, which has al- 
ready borne such enormous burdens, will not faint by 
the way. I know she will bestir herself and exert her- 



RUSSIA 95 

self to the utmost, and in this way we shall have the 
union of free democratic Powers of the world arrayed 
against the three, if not the four, I have mentioned. I 
know victory is in sight. 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 



General Smuts (an interview by Edward Marshall. 
The Curtis Broivn News Bureau). 
June, 1 91 7. 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 

General Smuts was speaking very slowly as we sat at 
a great window looking out upon the mist-bound Thames, 
His calm-eyed face, thoughtful with that thoughtfulness 
which comes only to men who have lived much in the 
open, alone in wide spaces, was smiling confidently. We 
had been talking of America's entrance into the great 
war and he had reached the point where he was willing 
to estimate for me its meaning. 

Here was a democrat of democrats, a man for the 
second time involved in a great struggle for ideals which 
in human life is wagered against human life with freedom 
as the ultimate stake. His first fight had been against 
England when he led the Boers in South Africa; his 
second is with England, and in it he represents the re- 
organised, revivified, reconstituted South Africa, now 
fighting as a great dominion in the British Common- 
wealth of Nations, during the greatest of all zvars. 

There is double the reason why the Central Powers 
must be defeated now that the States have entered. Vic- 
tory now has come to mean a closer union of democracies, 
a union of democracies so close and of democracies so 
great and strong that the result can be nothing other 
than the disintegration of the old order. The struggle 
of the Teutonic Powers is the last effort of old, feudal 
Europe to block human progress, and now all progres- 
sive humanity is arrayed in opposition to it. 

99 



ioo WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

In America you ended the old order more than a cen- 
tury ago, and the French Revolution, which on this side 
was the beginning of its crumbling, could not have won 
without your example — could not have begun without 
your stimulus; but the French Revolution only gave to 
France a partial democracy. Britain through the evolu- 
tion of her government only partly has achieved democ- 
racy. 

This war means that here in Europe will be fully real- 
ised the same achievement, which, already, you have 
carried to completion. It is especially fitting that you, 
in the United States, should take a hand in the last and 
greatest act leading to the downfall of the last of the 
old military autocracies. One — Russia— already has 
gone, under the tremendous pressure of this crisis. 
Turkey is breaking up. Only the Austro-German com- 
bination, its two component parts identical in aims 
and methods, now remains. The combination must be 
broken, the solidity of each part must be cracked. And 
the cracking is already audible. The freemen of Europe 
are encouraged, are delighted, because America is help- 
ing in the effort to accomplish all of this. 

After this great task has been well done, real co-opera- 
tion between free nations will be possible. Then for the 
first time will it be quite sane and reasonable to talk about 
the end of wars. Humanity demands a League of Peace 
of some effective kind, but secrecy breeds irresponsibility. 
Irresponsibility in Government is dangerous. Germany 
for many years has been preparing for this war — and no 
one knew. Not public opinion but individual ambition 
ruled Germany, and Germany led Austria. Govern- 
ment by those who are not held accountable to the great 
mass can work in secret. A League of Peace must be 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 101 

impossible while this is true of a great Power. Not until 
this ceases may humanity feel certain that any of its 
treaties, solemnly attested though they be, may not be 
regarded as mere scraps of paper. 

This war is a great battle against feudalism, and that 
battle never could be won effectively were not the United 
States one of its participants. The business is the busi- 
ness of America quite as definitely as it is the business 
of the British Empire or of France, or Italy, or Bel- 
gium. It is the Armageddon of humanity's long struggle 
against feudalism. 

It would have been a world-disaster which would have 
harmed the future beyond estimate if America, the 
mainstay of the great new forces, had not come in. She 
fought this same fight for herself; one of the privileges 
which she won with victory was the sublime right to un- 
selfishness. It was she who welcomed the new France 
born with the Republic, and now she sets her seal upon 
what well may be the final fight for freedom among the 
nations of the world. How heartily we welcome her 
we hope she understands. 

Really this war is the direct offspring of your own 
war for independence. That gave birth, undoubtedly, 
to the French Revolution, and that, in turn, brought true 
democracy to Europe. It gave Britain her democracy. 
As a matter of fact, the influence of that wonderful stir- 
ring of the souls of men which made you free started 
this world business ; it has had its vast effect even upon 
details, for nothing other than your war of 1776 lies at 
the basis of the Russian overturn. 

Now, however, your influence will be far more than 
psychological. It will be important also in the military 
victory which is to come to the Allies ; but if America 



102 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

is to help to victory the great new forces of which she 
is the exponent, she must take her proper place. 

If America had not come in there would have been 
the gravest danger that the great combat might lose its 
real perspective and true setting and degenerate into a 
mere Old World struggle, certainly for liberty and for 
democracy, but sure to terminate in an Old World set- 
tlement. 

Now, with you in the actual fighting it will have a 
world-wide meaning and an epoch-making ending. 

For the first time the New World will come in 'to 
redress the balance of the old.' Canning used that phrase 
with regard to the Monroe Doctrine, when the autocrats 
of Europe wished to interfere with the independence 
of South America. One hundred years later, not too 
soon after he foretold it, it is coming true. 

The war must end in the triumph of democracy, but 
that will not mean the universal democratisation of the 
nations which will be affected. Humanity does not work 
so fast. The French Revolution required a century of 
time in which to find fruition, for its influence is evi- 
dent in many very modern things. The unification of 
Italy is one of them, the union of that Germany which 
has put its union to so bad a use is one of them. This 
war is a greater one, and its effects will be still more 
momentous. 

What they will be no man may venture to predict. 
Something will happen which will be greater than the 
Holy Roman Empire's and mediaeval Europe's cracking 
up. It will bring humanity together. It will mean a step 
toward the co-ordination of free nations, and that will 
mean the further spread of freedom beyond the boun- 
daries even of nations which at present live in liberty. 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 103 

International co-operation will be substituted to a new 
extent for that international competition which has 
brought all wars, including this one. Already has been 
born a concert of military and diplomatic action among 
the Allies, indicated by continual conferences in the 
common cause, which are tending to impress, alike upon 
the peoples and their leaders, that internationally as well 
as in the case of individuals group-thought is better than 
one-man- or one-nation-thought. 

The world is beginning to piece a new machine to- 
gether for its future governance. In England, France, 
and Italy this is plain enough ; in Russia, of course, the 
signs are so unmistakable as to be epoch-making. 

Autonomy has not been interfered with. Each State 
retains its sovereignty. But each tremendous individual 
machine works smoothly in close harmony with all the 
others toward a common end. And now into this co- 
operation the greatest of the world's Republics has ad- 
vanced! A century ago all this would have been im- 
possible. 

This fine, significant, and fruitful co-operation will not 
cease with the cessation of the war. Free democracies 
throughout the world will be in close touch with other 
free democracies. The absolute governments must go. 
In that will lie a guarantee of peace — the first the world 
has known. In other words, this war will be a peace- 
maker, although it may seem like an effort of far vision 
to predict that now. 

Of course, this could not be if Democracy should be 
defeated. If Germany should win all would be lost for 
generations. The great task would be left for toilsome 
and laborious redoing. 

Centuries ago there was a time when here in Europe 



104 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

there was far more unity than since has been the case. 
That was in the days of Papal Primacy and that Holy 
Roman Empire which finally broke up. France was the 
worst sinner against this measurably good condition. 
Her policy of conquest finally became incarnated in Na- 
poleon and his dream of empire. 

It was that dream of the great, magnificent, disas- 
trous Frenchman which is principally responsible for 
the grim fact that coincident with the growth of Democ- 
racy's fine vision has been a growth of military monarchy. 
The Kaiser's sinister career has been modelled on Na- 
poleon's. It has not been a modern dream, and so must 
fade. It has intensely lacked reality. 

Like two thunderclouds approaching one another these 
influences, that of the Kaiser, with his mad reversion to 
the days of medievalism, and Democracy, with its proph- 
ecies of freedom for the future of mankind, have been 
in opposition, and Democracy must win. 

The world required the shock to wake, it up. England 
herself was slipping from the track. Under Disraeli she 
thought that she must be a military nation bent upon 
Imperialism. She went in for it, and the trial came 
finally in South Africa. The British victory over the 
Boers was a great test. A cheap and easy victory would 
have strengthened what were then the strong imperial 
tendencies of England and the British. But that tremen- 
dously exhausting struggle, maintained by one of the 
world's smallest peoples, taught the British people that 
the Boers were fighting, in some measure, for Britain's 
own traditional ideals. That meant that when the British 
won military victory so great a change was found to 
have been brought about in their moral that not only the 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 105 

two small Republics, but that which needed to be con- 
quered in England, all three had met defeat. 

I believe that the Boer War, too, like your American 
and the French Revolutions, had an immense influence 
upon history ; that it is to some extent that influence which 
the world now is feeling in the wonderful co-operation 
between free peoples to which I have referred. The Boer 
War forced anew upon the British people the realisa- 
tion of those fine ideals for which at bottom they invari- 
ably feel sympathy. 

And so the ending of the present, mighty war in a 
triumph for the Allies will not and must not mean merely 
a military victory. All real victories are. more than mili- 
tary victories. It will and must result in the establish- 
ment of the moral, free choice of peoples and nations 
with regard to their own fate. Thus only can the infinite 
struggle produce an effect sufficiently beneficial to the 
future to justify its mighty cost in any sense. 

This war is not directed by the Allies against the Ger- 
man people. Military imperialism is the foe the Allies 
fight, and within another ten years, had the war not 
come, Freedom, which never properly has been organised, 
would have fallen prey to her great enemies. In such a 
space, short though it seems to be, Germany well might 
have grown so powerful that she could have put hu- 
manity in bondage for another century. 

Democracy was not prepared for war, autocracy was 
ready; but Democracy fought bitterly for time and wort 
it. Give Democracy that one thing, time, and always it 
will win. Always time will put upon the side of true 
Democracy the vast battalions of the imponderables, of 
the unmaterial but powerful forces, spiritual, mental, 
psychological. 



io6 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

To me the most impressive thing about this war is 
not its slaughter of the guilty or the innocent, is not its 
cost in property destroyed and money spent with mad- 
dened lavishness upon the instruments of death. It is 
the fact that it has linked together for combat the forces 
of Democracy, the fact that through it liberty at last is 
organised. 

The forces of Democracy never have been organised 
before, and their coherent jointure has been a mighty 
task. Two years were needed to induce America, the 
greatest of free peoples, to step into the battle-ranks, 
and the work of breaking down what of the old and 
wrong was left in Britain and other democratic coun- 
tries is not yet entirely accomplished. The thing is 
epoch-making. We cannot at this time conceive the vast 
importance of these great events. Mankind a century 
hence will only start to learn the whats and whys of 
it all. 

Without the entrance of America the great thing could 
not have been done ; and the necessity for her co-opera- 
tion was less material than psychological. It is that 
which makes the fact that she has joined the fighting- 
line so wonderfully, so epochally fine. 

/ asked the great South African if he had an especial 
message for America. 

A most important one. It is: Press on! Do not 
delay. Be energetic, keen, and wise. There is intense 
need for hurry. Much time has been required by Con- 
gress to break away from its traditions; you have not 
been too early; but we hope that now the start is made 
the movement will be rapid. And we have faith that it 
will be. We know America. 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 107 

In the last stages of the war America must stand 
as the' great protagonist for liberty. I hope that she will 
bend all her vast energies toward quick participation in 
the fight, serving \iot merely as a recruiting ground for 
us, but developing as, perhaps, the greatest warrior of 
us all for liberty. You are fresh. Yours is the land of 
individual initiative. Your separate citizens can realise, 
perhaps better than the single citizens of Europe, the 
magnitude of the great causes which are jeopardised. 
You really have fought for all these causes in your own 
two great wars. 

You have youth and you have vigour. Your people 
have been educated, and what a stroke for education it 
will be when by their fighting they shall demonstrate to 
all the world that the best fighting man as well as the best 
working man is he who has been educated ! Germany 
but half understood the secret of the best creation of real 
citizenship through education. Because of your fine 
educational systems, and their preservation of the in- 
dividual, I am sure that when your men come over we 
shall find them the best soldiers in the world. Being edu- 
cated, they will know the vast importance of the cause 
for which we fight. And there will be among them no 
mere automatons. Their knowledge and adaptability, I 
am sure, will make them the finest soldiers that the world 
has seen. 

The fact that this is really a war for peace will give 
it an immense appeal among your people. The results, 
I am quite confident, will make the Allies glad and Ger- 
many regret that America has been a pacifist nation. 
This war is not a struggle for military dominion. I am 
sure that tens of thousands of your German-blooded 
citizens will feel it to be really a fight against exactly 



108 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

that and see that, being such a fight against it, it actually 
is a battle for the soul of Germany. I am sure that 
there are those among them who will wish to fight with 
us because of their conviction that, as true German pa- 
triots, they must help their nation toward real freedom 
and democracy. Actually to fight for the Allies is to 
fight for what is best in Germany herself. 

The American of German descent can participate in 
the great struggle with as good a heart as any other 
American. He will be fighting for his Motherland as 
well as for the land of his adoption. Many Germans 
know that; I have reason to be sure of it. Being pulled 
in one direction by their ties of blood and in the other 
by their ties of human interest and true values, and 
having been educated in the identity of freedom by 
residence in a free country, I feel confident that most 
of them will realise that; this really is not a fight against 
Germany, but a struggle to pull her into line with the 
progressive forces of the world. 

Personally I have not the slightest feeling against 
Germans. I am positive that the victory of the Allies 
will redound as much to their advantage as to that of 
anybody. In the heart of the Allied soldiers or in the 
plans of the Allied Governments there is no wish to crush 
Germany as a State or even to minimise her importance. 
The Allies but insist — and this they do insist — that she 
must cease to terrorise the world. 

For years her mistaken policies have kept the peoples 
of the earth in apprehension of exactly that which now 
is happening, and this humanity no longer will endure. 
She has been inoculating the whole world with the virus 
of militarism, and this has tended to dislocate progress. 

Germany always will remain among the most potent 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 109 

of the nations. She has been so highly organised that 
always she will be in the van of progress. It would be 
the world's loss if she were permanently expelled from 
that high position ; it was the world's loss when she aban- 
doned it for retrogression. All Germans but the Prus- 
sians have been a peaceful people always. But either 
from Frederick the Great or from Napoleon the Prus- 
sians learnt a devilish lesson, and belief in what was thus 
established in their minds must be knocked out of them. 

Especially to the young American there is much worth 
study in the situation as it stands. Let me speak par- 
ticularly to him. 

What are you ? You have been born into a system of 
liberal individualism. You are fortunate. Here in Eu- 
rope children are brought up in an old system. You are 
a free man, an individual co-equal with all other citizens. 

You are not an atom in a stratification. That is the 
chief advantage of your citizenship of the United States. 
Not being stratified you have all of life to move about 
in. 

It may be difficult, because of this very strength of 
your individualism, to lick you into shape as a great 
fighting force, an army ; but when this once is done you 
will be wonderfully powerful. When you come over 
here to fight numbers of things will chafe you, but you 
will learn much quicker than the European soldier can 
learn. 

We in South Africa are intensely individual, fed upon 
the milk of social and political freedom, and I do not 
hesitate to say that because of that very fact South Af- 
ricans are now among the best of the world's soldiers. 
There are no soldiers like freemen, and you, the young 
men of America whose high destiny it will be to battle 



no , WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

in this war, will be among the best of the world's best. 
You, representing democracy, will beat Germany, repre- 
senting autocracy, at everything she undertakes. 

One lesson I have derived from a study of American 
history and problems is the danger America has incurred 
on various critical occasions through the failure of her 
statesmen and public men sufficiently to support her 
military authorities. For example, it is clear that in your 
War of Independence Congress went as near as possible 
to bringing general disaster, and that had it not been 
for the invincible spirit of George Washington, with 
whom Congress for ever was interfering to the upset of 
his well-laid plans, your struggle would have failed. 

In your Civil War much that might have been done 
at once and effectively was postponed because your 
Congress would not trust your leaders. Only when 
Lincoln was able to give a free hand to Grant was vic- 
tory achieved. This did not occur till scores of thousands 
had been slaughtered needlessly. The deaths of those 
brave thousands may be charged directly to political in- 
terference with the military plans of your accepted but 
not sufficiently powerful leaders. 

Now, as you approach participation in this struggle, 
take thought of these things. Your people do not realise 
the magnitude of this enormous task. It may mean for 
you a far greater struggle than your Civil War. It may 
well be the greatest effort of your history. It is of the 
utmost and far-reaching importance that you should take 
thought of the great lessons taught by the experience of 
your Lincoln and your Grant. 

You should very carefully, very solemnly, arrange the 
best military machine which you can possibly devise. 
You should organise it and equip it with the best thought 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR in 

of your national genius. Once built, this great machine 
should be placed in charge of men so shrewdly chosen 
that to them yor can feel safe in giving an absolutely 
free hand. Do not let your Government pull this way 
and your Congress pull the other while your military 
commanders strain in a third direction. Take to heart 
the mighty lessons of your own and every other na- 
tion's history. 

The relations between your civil authorities should 
be such that, having settled your military direction, they 
will let it work with the least possible interference, for 
the least friction means the greatest efficiency. 

The salvation of Britain was that at the time of the 
war's outbreak she had as her War Minister Lord 
Kitchener and left him a free hand in the organization 
of her armies — her armies that will win their victory 
after his death. In America you have no military genius 
in your Cabinet, nor is it necessary that you should have, 
but this makes it still more essential that after you have 
constituted your military machine as carefully as possible 
all political conditions should be subordinated in its 
operation, and that that should go forward without out- 
side interference. 

Political interference in military affairs already has 
caused great difficulties on this side. Avoid them. Study 
our mistakes. Remember those of your own wars. 
Avoid them now. 

May I venture to express my pleasure over some things 
which have reached us from America as frankly as I 
have expressed my fears? The stand which a number 
of your great organisations have taken against profit- 
eering is most gratifying to us here. Nothing could be 
more important. You have set a notable example in this 



ii2 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

matter to us all — and you have done it very quickly. It 
looks as if such scandals as have marked the progress of 
the war on this side -may be avoided in America. 

This has been among the valuable indications that in 
entering this war America is doing so with the spirit 
that it is a holy war, waged in the justest causes for the 
highest, noblest principles, and that any one who tries 
to profit through it must be held for evermore as having 
passed beyond the pale. Here, in this matter, is another 
opportunity for the United States to set a record for the 
world to marvel at and follow — if it can. Personally I 
have no doubt that you will do it. 

And before you go may I give you one more message ? 
I should wish to direct this definitely to American 
women. Very keenly must they feel the reasons for and 
justifications of this struggle, if they would support it, 
for theirs will be the greatest sacrifice, that of their 
sweethearts, husbands, sons, and brothers, and, second- 
arily, often of that comfort which to women means so 
much. 

They should realise that one of the great truths about 
this struggle is that it is for the position which all woman- 
hood will hold throughout the world in days to come. 
This is a war for peace, and through the lack of peace 
the sufferings of women have been greater than the suf- 
ferings of men. It must be, and they must help to make 
it, the last chapter in the old book of war and horror, 
destruction of dear homes, rapes, massacre and outrage. 
They must help to make it the great end of the oppres- 
sions of all womanhood. In Europe, speaking generally, 
women still are held in thrall by the old feudal system, 
and by helping in this war with all their strength and 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 113 

all their hearts and all their souls American women may 
do much to help to break those chains. 

If Freedom wins in this war, political emancipation 
will be achieved by womanhood in all parts of the world. 

It is the fight of womanhood as much as it is that 
of manhood. It has liberated many evil forces ; it will 
liberate many forces of beneficence. Chiefest of them 
all will be the sane and purifying force of womanhood. 
Unquestionably the Allied nations represent the impulse 
working toward the freedom of all womanhood. The 
feudal impulse is to keep womanhood in subjugation, 
in the background. 

There is every reason in the world why women in 
America should strive to help, strive mightily, even 
were they not involved through love of fathers, sons, and 
husbands who must join the battle-line, and by the love 
of their own country whose best traditions and institu- 
tions would be threatened by a German victory. 

Now let me say one word to the young American who 
has not enlisted but is eligible for service. You are 
living in the greatest time of human history. You are 
confronted by the greatest opportunity God ever gave 
to any human individual to help his fellow-men, to help 
poor, staggering humanity to a new and brighter future. 
If you do not do your duty now your conscience all 
your life will trouble you. If you do not do your duty 
now you never will be able to hold up your head among 
your fellow freemen in the days to come. To the work- 
ing men among you this must especially appeal, for to 
the working men this war, the winning of this war, 
means a new world, better conditions, a higher order. 

The working man who fights in this cause is fighting 
for all those ideals which the labour movement in all 



H4 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

parts of the world, in Germany as much as elsewhere, 
has stood for since the days of its beginning. 

Up to date the young workers of the Old World have 
borne nobly their part in the great struggle. The young 
American workers who now are called upon to help 
the fight may not all have the privilege of joining in the 
marching ranks. Indeed they must not all join them. 
The worker at his bench may be as useful as the soldier 
in his trench. 

Especially will this be true of workers in your ship- 
yards. Everything in the great war now depends upon 
communication and transport. In the face of the enor- 
mous destruction of shipping which already has occurred 
and is continuing, and the world-wide range of this war, 
it is impossible to do our best unless shipbuilding prog- 
ress is accelerated, and there the worker of America be- 
comes of vital world-importance. 

And if the shipbuilder is a great power in this vast war 
the farmer is as great a one. When the ships are 
launched there must be food with which to fill their 
holds so that the people on this side who so far have 
been forced to bear the brunt of fighting may continue 
at their task. To build ships and raise potatoes, corn, 
and wheat — there is a truly patriotic programme for the 
young and old American worker, commonplace as it may 
sound. It is as patriotic to till fields in these days as it 
is to carry rifles. 

When, some day, it is all over, every free citizen of 
the United States should have the proud consciousness 
that he has done his share in one way or another in the 
great task of making victory for Right a certainty, that 
he has done his share toward safeguarding the most 



DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR 115 

priceless of all humanity's good gifts, the high ideals of 
individuality, liberty, and free government. 

Fighting side by side in the same cause we shall for- 
get imaginary boundary lines. As the result of our 
joint struggle there shall grow in us a new consciousness, 
a world-wide sympathy, a co-operative spirit out of 
which a better world will come to being. Towards the 
certainty of this new order and the surety of this new 
world, no one is in a position to do more than the 
United States, blessed as your nation is by unexampled 
resources and strong after a century of freedom and 
half a century of peace. Now is the time when we feel 
sure that these immeasurably noble gifts will be turned 
to account in order that throughout the world may be 
achieved the American ideal of the freedom of the in- 
dividual. 

Your minute-men of 1776 fought in no nobler cause 
than that in which will fight your minute-men of 1917. 
Nothing more clearly expressed the reasons of the 
struggle or has done more to make all Europe under- 
stand them than the great speech of your President, 
Woodrow Wilson, to the League to Enforce Peace, and 
his still greater message to your Congress before your 
declaration of war. Millions in Europe whose faith was 
on the wane were heartened by his words and I feel sure 
that the American people, who have been nurtured on 
the milk of human freedom, will appreciate even more 
profoundly than Europeans can the greatness of the 
issues and how necessary it is that freemen everywhere 
should contribute to the battle, if the sacrifice is neces- 
sary, all that they possess. 

We are heartened, too, by our certainty that your 
President stands not alone among you as the champion 



n6 WAR-TIME SPEECHES 

of liberty. All your great leaders share his views on 
the great questions of this war. You have proved this 
through your generations from your days of Washington 
down to and through the days of your present Presi- 
dent's great predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt. 



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